Mill Reef next for ‘hugely exciting’ debut winner Into The Sky

Jim Boyle is trying to keep his feet on the ground – as well as the horse in the yard’s new purpose-built facilities at South Hatch Stables – following the impressive debut success of Into The Sky at Newbury.

The Epsom trainer, speaking on this week’s Luck On Sunday programme, revealed that he has received several notes of interest from potential buyers since the Starman colt’s runaway success on Thursday.

He explained: “The first key is to try and keep him in the yard! The phone has been red hot and we're working on ways to achieve that.

“We've always known that this was the nicest two-year-old we've had in a long, long time - probably ever really - but we only have five two-year-olds this year so it quickly got to the stage where we had no other two-year-olds good enough to work with him so he's been working with older horses. 

“You've got to remember that this horse had never set foot on turf since he was out in the field as a yearling. The ground had been so firm all summer he's only ever worked on the all-weather.

“We did take him for a barrier trial and that made a huge difference for him. We gave him a nice little outing there and it was a great education for him, it brought him on bundles.”

Despite that, the 25,000 guineas purchase was allowed to go off at 80-1 for his first start where, having been slightly keen under Kieran Shoemark, he quickened smartly from the front and crossed the line seven and a half lengths clear of the twice-raced Dark Shore.

Boyle added: “The people who are experts in times and sectionals tell me that what he did on Thursday was absolutely out of this world really. It was an incredible time and you can see that visually, but it's also backed up by the data so it’s hugely exciting for us to have a horse like him - it's pretty special.

“He's a really imposing, beautiful horse that we've always thought was next year's horse and we were going to treat him fairly tenderly this year and he ended up being a bit more forward than I thought.

“He’s taken everything that we've thrown at him and he's got an unbelievable stride.”

Into The Sky’s sire Starman ran in a Group One on the final start of his own debut season – albeit as a three-year-old – and Boyle will now look to pattern company for his young stable star, with the Group Two Mill Reef Stakes back in Berkshire on the 20 September the potential next port of call.

He detailed: “I would be foolish not to have a look at the Mill Reef if I'm being honest. He's a horse who showed fantastic speed back so going back to Newbury for a six-furlong Group Two would be extremely exciting. 

“He's come out of the race really well, we've got three weeks until then and that's very much on the radar, but you know we won't push it - if we don't feel it's right we won't go there but that'd be on my mind and then I wouldn't worry too much if we didn't run him again this season after that.

“But we'll just have to see - we'll take it a little bit step by step - and we're making plans now that we weren't thinking of necessarily before he demolished them on Thursday.

“It sounds a cliche, but very much everything he's done this year or will do this year is a bonus, because he's a really big, scopey, lovely horse that is very much one for next year too.”