Scintillo

They sprinted into the first turn in the Winter Derby at Lingfield last Saturday, but then, as soon as they levelled up down the back straight, the two Clive Brittain horses sat at the head of the field and steadied the pace down, which didn’t suit a number of them, the winner Scintillo among them. Nevertheless, the Richard Hannon horse showed a fine turn of foot between horses to take it up a furlong out, and kept on really well to just about withstand the late lunge of the favourite Premio Loco on the near side.

The runner-up perhaps wasn’t ideally suited by the slow early gallop, given how hard he pulled around the first couple of turns, nor was the third horse, Bronze Cannon, but Scintillo is essentially a 12-furlong horse who was dropping down in trip, and he showed a really impressive turn of foot and a willing attitude to stave off Premio Loco’s challenge, which looked set to prevail a furlong out. Scintillo won the Group 1 Gran Criterium at San Siro as a juvenile, but failed to win in nine starts last season as a juvenile. This was his second win in four days, having won easily at Kempton over a mile and a half on the previous Wednesday evening, and he should be able to go on from here now. The Ormonde Stakes over a mile and five furlongs at Chester’s May meeting is next on his agenda, and he should take all the beating in that Group 3 contest before going on to even better things later in the season.

21^st March, 2009