The Glancing Queen

The Glancing Queen ran better than her finishing positions suggests in the Champion Bumper. Slowly away from the standing start, she was third last passing the stands first time, and she was always playing catch-up after that. Wide down the back straight and very wide when they turned at the top of the hill, widest of all, about 10 horses wide, she made significant progress on the run down the hill, travelling well, to get to within about a length of the leaders, but she had done a lot of running to get there, and she started to tire from there. Wide around the home turn too, she just faded into eighth place.

She was entitled to tire. This was her first run since she won the Grade 2 mares’ bumper at Aintree last April. She can go well fresh, but it can’t have been Alan King’s plan for her to make her seasonal debut at the Cheltenham Festival, so she should come on for this. She is only six and we know that she can go well at Cheltenham and Aintree. She could be an interesting novice hurdler next season.

Cheltenham 11^th March, 2020