Silsol

Silsol put up a nice performance to win a good two-mile-three-furlong handicap hurdle at Newbury on Saturday.

Always travelling well for Jack Sherwood through the race, Paul Nicholls' horse moved to the near sided in the home straight. Home Run looked a likely winner when he kicked on on the far side on the run to the third last flight, and a mistake at the second flight last did not help Silsol, but he picked up well, passed the David Pipe horse on the run to the last, and stayed on well over the final flight and up the run-in to hold off the late challenge of favourite Hammersly Lake.

This was a decent race, a race that was won by At Fisher's Cross two years ago, and Silsol won it well. He was weak in the market beforehand as well, Nicholls said afterwards that he hadn't done a lot with him in the lead up to the race, that he really didn't expect him to win, that he thought that he would have a nice run here and that he would train him for a Pertemps qualifier at Wincanton. The horse was apparently lame in the autumn and only had six weeks' work in the lead up to this race. Also, he was not wearing the cheekpieces that he wore when he won on his last two runs last season. It seemed to be a surprise to connections, and he could come on a fair bit for this.

This was the Soldier Hollow gelding's seasonal debut. He was a progressive novice hurdler last season, he finished second in his four runs after his seasonal debut, then he won his last two last season, both in cheekpieces, a two-and-a-half-mile handicap hurdle at Ayr and a two-mile-six-furlong novices' hurdle at Newton Abbott. He raced off a mark of 144 on Saturday, and the handicapper has raised him 7lb for that performance, which was more than merited. His rating of 151 means that he can have a look at better races now, and he will be interesting in graded races. The time of the race was not overly impressive, but he is only five, this was just his sixth run over hurdles, and he could progress significantly now.

29th November 2014

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