Portcullis
It was difficult not to be taken with the performance that Portcullis put up in winning the Wood Ditton Stakes at Newmarket on Thursday. Weak in the market beforehand, he missed the break, he was a detached last after they had gone a hundred yards, and it took him a little while to figure out what was being asked of him. He moved nicely into his race though on the near side under Ryan Moore and, when his rider asked him to go and win his race, the response was really impressive. He cleared away from his rivals on the run into the Dip, and he won by five and a half lengths in the end.
It is always difficult to be dogmatic about the Wood Ditton, a race for unraced juveniles, before there is more evidence, but there was an awful lot to like about this performance from John and Thady Gosden's horse. The fact that he was able to win as impressively as he did, after being weak in the market, after missing the break, is obviously significant. As well as that though, they didn't go fast early on, it wasn't that he was the beneficiary of a pace collapse. On the contrary, he did well to come from last, to make his ground into a quickening pace. He was over a half a second faster than his fastest rival through the final furlong. By Frankel, he is out of the French 1000 Guineas winner Castle Lady, and his grandam is a half-sister to Breeders' Cup Classic winner Raven's Pass. He will be of interest again now, stepped up in grade.
Newmarket, 16th April 2026
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