Malaya

Malaya put up a good performance to finish second to Kid Commando in the Listed Sodexo Handicap Hurdle. While it never really looked like she was going to get to the winner, who made all the running and stayed on well from the second last flight, Paul Nicholls’ mare kept on well herself for Bryony Frost to take second place, coming 10 lengths clear of her better-fancied stable companion Scaramanga in third.

This was a good start to the season for Paul Nicholls’ mare. She could be a well-handicapped horse now on a mark of 139, which is just 3lb higher than the mark off which she won the Imperial Cup in 2019. She is not that lightly-raced, but she is only six and she could improve for this, her first run since she finished second in another good handicap hurdle at Ascot in February. She raced over fences on her debut last season, when she finished third behind Rouge Vif in a novices’ chase at Market Rasen, but she wasn’t tried over fences again, and she can probably go higher over hurdles now. She goes well at Ascot and Sandown, and she will be of particular interest at either of those tracks again now.

Ascot, 31^st October 2020