Aablan

Aablan did well to win the Group 3 Solario Stakes at Sandown last Saturday. He wore a red hood in the preliminaries, and he was keen early on behind a sedate pace that Sean Levey set on Inishfallen, and he was green. He looked booked for third place when Starlore came up on his outside on the run to the furlong marker, but he responded well when James Doyle asked him to pick up, and he showed a lot of grit to get back up, going on to win by a neck in the end.

A good winner of a novice stakes at Newmarket in July over seven furlongs on his previous run, this was a nice step forward from that. The race was not strongly run, the winner’s finishing speed was 107.67% of overall speed, and this race, a Group 3 race, was the slowest by some way of the four seven-furlong races run on the day. By Dubawi and out of a mare who won two Group 2 races over nine furlongs, the sedate pace shouldn’t have suited the Godolphin colt at all.

There are some noteworthy names on the Solario Stakes roll of honour, including Alhaarth and Raven’s Pass and Kingman and Too Darn Hot. Charlie Appleby won it in 2017 with Masar, who won the Derby the following year. Aablan could improve again for this experience, and he could do better over further. He would be of interest if he lined up in the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes, or in the Group 3 Autumn Stakes, a race that Charlie Appleby won in 2022 with last year’s Solario Stakes winner Silver Knott.

Sandown, 2^nd September 2023