Electra Star

Electra Star has improved with every run this season and earned herself a step up to listed class after winning a Class 3 handicap at Ascot at the start of September off a mark of 86, where she had to weave right through the pack, coming from the far side of the field to challenge on the near side as they came down the middle of the track, and she was ultimately well on top at the line. She got her chance at listed level at Newmarket on Friday in the Rosemary Stakes, where she faced a more than useful field, featuring proven listed performers Dark Promise and Seta.

William Haggas’s filly likes to come off a fast pace and they just simply didn’t go fast enough for her here. She was held up last in a race in which Dark Promise and The Shrew set only modest fractions, and she was always going to face a tough task in trying to make up the six or seven lengths from the rear, at a meeting at which it generally paid to race prominently. Dark Promise kicked on into the Dip and had more than enough in hand to hold off the challenge of Seta, with The Shrew managing to keep on for third. Electra Star finished best of all, despite meeting interference, to just edge out her stable companion Sooraah for sixth, five and a half lengths behind the winner. In fact she finished so strongly that she was actually upsides the winner at the pull-up.

Electra Star has progressed nicely this year, she has won twice, and finished a neck second to the useful Godolphin horse Terdaad, in three handicap runs. The manner of her victory at Ascot suggests she was some way ahead of her handicap mark of 86, and even with a 7lb rise to 93, that still leaves connections with the option of going back into handicaps after this. The suspicion is that she is a fair bit better than she was able to show here, the way this race was run was totally against her and she is worth another shot at black type. She may be slightly under-rated now if she is to run again at this level, give that she came up short here. A faster pace should see her in much better light, and she would certainly be of interest were she upped to nine or even 10 furlongs. Easier ground shouldn’t present a problem either.

23rd September 2011