Juvenile Watch: Ross Millar likes one for the Chesham

There were a few performances worthy of note in the last week.

In the opening race at the Curragh on Sunday the Aidan O'Brien-trained Sun Goddess was sent off at the prohibitive odds of 4/11. Though, if you'd backed her at that price, you were at least afforded a comfortable watch as she looked in control at all stages of the race, eventually quickening clear under hands and heels riding from Ryan Moore to win by a widening five lengths.

She had caught the eye on debut, finishing runner-up despite showing clear signs of immaturity under her apprentice rider.

That experience had clearly brought her forward, and physically she looks a strong, well-developed filly.

All roads must now surely lead towards the Albany at Royal Ascot where her big stride and strong closing fractions will give her a big chance.

Next on the card was the group three Marble Hill Stakes where again we saw another strong performance from a Ballydoyle juvenile. Great Barrier Reef had been an impressive course and distance winner on his debut, and backed up that visually impressive performance here.

Travelling well without cover before moving stylishly into contention, he did hang left when asked to go and win his race, but once straightened out, it was an impressive final furlong that he produced, and plenty on my social media feed were hugely impressed.

Personally, I think I'll be opposing him if, as was suggested post-race, he heads to the Coventry at Royal Ascot for his next start. He did shift slightly left on his debut, but that tendency was far more defined here, as it took Ryan Moore plenty of time to straighten him out.

Of course, he is still raw enough to improve mentally, but in a race with more depth, any imperfections in his racing style are going to weaken his chances. 

Both of these performances were undeniably high-class, however, Friday at Haydock is where I think we saw the real standout performance of the week.

The George Scott-trained Sea Venture has a stamina-based pedigree being by Sea The Stars out of the Shamardal mare Nectar De Rose. She showed plenty of immaturity on this debut too, diving away to her right when the stalls opened. This meant she found herself towards the rear of the field on the near side rail.

She travelled much the best into the race, but had a wall of horses in front of her (so much so that with a furlong to run I'd added her to the 'Winners In Waiting' list for this week), but a big move to the wide outside saw her find some daylight and she picked up well drawing well clear in the closing stages.

Given all that went wrong, allied to the near certainty that her pedigree promises improvement over further, I thought this was the standout juvenile performance of the week.

I suspect the Chesham at Royal Ascot will be next and if that's the case she will undoubtedly be near the top of my shortlist. I think she's a high calibre filly in the making.

STARDOM GLORY (Hugo Palmer)

Made a promising debut at York on Saturday. Given it was his first experience on a racecourse he can be forgiven his slow break from the stalls.

However, he impressed when finishing off his race to good effect and, given natural progression, he should be capable of winning next time.

TIME SAXON WARRIOR (Richard Hughes)

Features in this section for the second time from two starts. I'd said after his Bath debut that he might yet need more experience and sadly (at least for my pocket) that proved to be true at Windsor on Saturday when he again failed to break from the gate efficiently.

He's got plenty of ability though, as evidenced by his strong closing effort, and I'll keep the faith next time though of course with just one more run before he is eligible for a handicap mark it could be that he still needs a bit more time.