Jancis

Jancis was an impressive winner of her maiden over seven furlongs at Leopardstown last month and, stepped up significantly in grade into the Group 3 Brownstown Stakes at Leopardstown on Thursday evening, she won again. Willie McCreery’s filly was a 40/1 shot on her racecourse debut, but she won well, coming from well back in the field and winning comfortably. She obviously wasn’t anything near 40/1 on Thursday, but she ran a similar race, dropped out towards the rear of the field early on by Billy Lee and coming with a withering run down the outside to go on and win well.

There was substance to the form too. The runner-up Bluedrum finished third in a listed race at Navan on her previous run, third-placed Special Wan was only just beaten by the 109-rated Mutasarref in the Group 3 Ballycorus Stakes on her previous run, fourth-placed Thornbrook won a listed race at Chantilly last year, sixth-placed Wendla won the Group 3 Guineas Trial at Leopardstown on her penultimate run. And Jancis did well to come from the rear in a race that was not run at a strong pace, they were well behind the opening juvenile fillies’ maiden with three furlongs to run, and the winner’s finishing speed was over 109% of overall speed.

This was just Jancis’ second run, she obviously remains unexposed, and there is no knowing how high she could go. Her trainer mentioned the Group 1 Matron Stakes at Leopardstown on Irish Champions Weekend – a race that he won in 2014 with Fiesolana – as a possible target now, and that makes lots of sense. She is obviously proven at the track, she is two for two there and, out of a mare who won over a mile and a half, she could even improve for the step up to a mile. She is exciting.

Leopardstown, 11^th July 2024