Red Cadeaux

Red Cadeaux ran a cracker to go down by just three parts of a length to Lady Eclair in a listed handicap run over one mile and five and a half furlongs at Chester on Saturday. Ed Dunlop’s gelding has a tendency to miss the break, which is no good at Chester, where it is essential to get an early position no matter how long the race is because there are simply not many areas on the track where you can make progress without losing ground by going wide. After missing the kick, Red Cadeaux was further back than ideal in the early stages of the race, he had to come wider than Michael Hills would have wanted to deliver his challenge, and even at that he only just failed to get past the gallant Lady Eclair, who had the run of the race. The ground was just about soft enough for the son of Cadeaux Genereux here, and he should be better on the softer ground that should prevail in the autumn.

Also, this was just his second run since May – the fast ground during the summer meant that he didn’t get to run much – and he should progress again for it. The Cesarewitch is next on his agenda, and he could easily go well in that over the extended distance, especially if the ground came up on the easy side. He got badly hampered on a couple of occasions in the Chester Cup on his only try to date over a distance in excess of two miles, and he could improve significantly for the extra distance. He is relatively lightly-raced, and he has been dropped back down to a mark of 90, which could under-estimate his ability by a fair way.

21st August 2010

© The Irish Field, 28th August 2010