Beaten Up

Beaten Up looks an exciting horse after his win in the Class 3 Classified Stakes, the last race at Doncaster on Friday, just his second lifetime start. The son of Beat Hollow was out alertly and across to the rail smartly from stall seven, before taking a lead from Valid Reason after a furlong. Valid Reason set a good clip and, if anything, Beaten Up was still a little keen on the run around the home bend, but he moved up to the leader stylishly coming inside the final two furlongs. Mashaaref came with him on his outside looking a threat, but Richard Hughes clearly knew what he had underneath him as he barely moved until passing the furlong marker, and even then he only had to shake his horse up briefly and push him out hands and heels to the line to record a four-length win.

It is hard to believe that this was just Beaten Up’s second ever run, his first for 146 days. The William Haggas-trained gelding moved through the race like a high-class horse and, significantly, he had been well backed throughout the day, he has obviously been showing up well at home. A half-brother to Harris Tweed, he had won his maiden well at Ripon on his debut and, while it is unclear why he had been off for so long after his debut, he has a vast amount of potential.

This had looked a trappy race beforehand and the suspicion that the three-year-olds would come to the fore was proved correct with four of the five members of the Classic generation finishing in the first seven of the 16 runners. Beaten Up was comfortably the best of them though, and he beat another unexposed three-year-old in Mashaaref, who could also be more than useful, by four lengths with a further three and a half lengths back to the pace-setting Valid Reason, who held on for third. It could well be that there was an advantage to race up with the pace in this race, as the pace was not frenetic and they did seem to be given a lot of rope by those in behind. The first two were the two most progressive horses coming into the race though, and it was difficult not to be impressed with the winner’s performance. The three-year-old gelding (he had been gelded before he had even run) was raised 12lb by the handicapper for this, but he still has the potential to be a fair bit better than his new mark of 97. He could easily progress to be a group horse next year just like his half-brother. It would appear that he is a slightly pacier sort at this stage, but he is bred to be even better over further than this 10-furlong trip.

9th September 2011