Castle Harbour

Castle Harbour put up a nice performance to win the seven-furlong maiden at Newmarket on Tuesday, the opening day of the Craven meeting.

John Gosden’s horse was well-supported beforehand on this, his racecourse debut. That may have been influenced by the fact that Gosden and Frankie Dettori had already had two winners on the card, but Castle Harbour was still obviously well regarded.

Dettori bounced him out of the gate, he was just a little keen through the very early stages of the race, but he settled into a nice lead at a nice even gallop. He was challenged first by well-backed Archimento and then by favourite Fawaareq, both of whom had racecourse experience, and there was a lot to like about the manner in which he battled on up the hill. He was always doing enough to hold his two challengers at bay, and he actually went way again inside the final 50 yards.

This was a really likeable performance from this debutant. The winning time was not great, but he ran on strongly to hold off the challenges of two well-regarded rivals, both of whom raced last year as a juvenile, unlike the winner, and the three of them pulled nicely clear of their rivals. A 200,000-guinea yearling, the Kyllachy colt is out of a mare who won over a mile, a half-sister to Mabait, whose best performances were over a mile, and he raced here like he could do even better for a step up in trip to a mile. He will be of interest again now, ideally stepped up in trip to a mile.

12^th April 2016