Rainbow Peak

Rainbow Peak did very well to get as close as he did in a one-mile listed handicap at York on Thursday. He was well out the back in the early stages, which wasn’t really where you wanted to be in a race in which Richard Hills was allowed dictate a fairly sedate pace up front on Fareer. Switched wide by Neil Callan, Rainbow Peak began to make progress from the three-furlong pole, he had to come widest of all from the back, he was second last turning for home, and he was moving up down the outside, but then they got away from him again a bit when Fareer quickened from the front at the two-furlong pole. Rainbow Peak stayed on really well inside the final furlong, finishing fastest and best, but he just couldn’t catch Fareer, who held on to win by a head.

Michael Jarvis’s gelding remains highly exciting. He won all three of his runs last season, his first season to race, his last and most impressive win coming over 10 furlongs on soft ground at Newbury. It was always going to be likely that a mile on fast ground was not going to be a sufficient test for him on this, his seasonal debut, and the slow early gallop merely made his task even more difficult. Fareer is a highly talented performer himself, and he had the run of the race, so Rainbow Peak’s performance in running him so close when he didn’t was hugely meritorious. They were considering next Thursday’s Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Sandown for him, but he has been taken out of that now. He is in the Queen Anne, a Group 1 contest, which is an indication of the regard in which he is held, and the faster pace and stiffer test that he will get there will suit him much better. He may be at his best over slightly further than a mile, and on easy ground, but he will be interesting wherever he goes next.

13th May 2010