Glen’s Diamond

Glen’s Diamond continued his progression by landing the Dee Stakes at Chester last week, his fourth win in a row and his first in Pattern company. The track shouldn’t have suited him, he wasn’t ideally suited by the stop-start gallop that Richard Hills set on Maqaraat, he probably wants further than this 10 and a half furlongs, the ground might have been slightly fast for him, and he was widest of all into the home straight, but he stayed on really well all the way up the straight to win nicely.

The plan was to make it, but he was slowly away and Paul Hanagan had to sit in to avoid having to race three horses wide. He has clearly come on a lot since his previous run at Musselburgh though, where he was very green, as he settled really well here just off the leaders. For a big horse it would have been far from ideal to have to make ground wide into the straight around this tight course as the pace was quickening and he was forced even wider to make his challenge as Lajooj drifted right. He soon strode to the lead and, although he did drift left in the straight, tightening up the three in behind him slightly, he had probably put the race to bed by then and he ran right through the line to win commandingly.

The Intikhab gelding will have learned a good deal from this and he is on a steep upward curve now. At this stage there is no saying how high he could go, but connections hold him in very high regard. He should improve again for a step up to 12 furlongs as he is a half-brother to two winners over that trip and further (dam is a Rainbow Quest mare) and Intikhab, although a miler, does get horses who stay, as evidenced by Snow Fairy last season. Richard Fahey’s horse has many options now; he could be a Derby horse, or he could be a St Leger horse as he looks like he would stay a mile and six. Alternatively, he could be an Irish Derby horse or a King Edward horse. As he is not in any of those mile and a half races he would need supplementing to take part, but his trainer is keen to have big winners this season and isn’t averse to persuading his owners to supplement, as we saw with Barefoot Lady in the Guineas.

He is a really exciting horse, but he will probably be better suited by a more galloping track than Epsom as he is a big, long-striding horse and he had a few problems with the tight track here, although to be fair to the horse this was the first time he had gone round a left hand bend on a racecourse.

6th May 2011

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