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Pontefract report: Tuscan Hills too good for Silver Tankard rivals
By Racing TV
Last Updated: Mon 21 Oct 2024
Tuscan Hills looks to have a future (Martin Rickett/PA)
Kia Joorabchian’s Amo Racing have been the talk of the sales season having splashed the cash at Tattersalls, but they already have a smart prospect on their hands in Tuscan Hills, an easy winner of the British Stallion Studs EBF Silver Tankard Stakes.
Three years ago Joorabchian saw his purple silks carried to victory in the Listed event by Mr Professor, who had subsequent Irish Derby winner and Arc runner-up Westover behind him.
Again it was Amo and Juddmonte to the fore with Ralph Beckett’s Calla Lagoon the favourite but he had no answer to Tuscan Hills (7-2), who powered away in the straight to win by almost five lengths and give his trainer Raphael Freire a second win at this level.
David Egan, coming to the end of his first year in the role as retained rider for Amo, was suitably impressed.
He told Racing TV: “It just shows you as he’s a little bit of a sleeper at home.
“He went to Thirsk on his debut and he wasn’t the finished article and we knew there was a lot of improvement to come, so I actually went and rode another horse somewhere else and Oisin Orr rode him.
“He showed a lot of greenness in the first half of the race but the fact it was a mile on debut gave him time to get the hang of things and Oisin got a really good feel off him that day.
“He’s shown that again today, he’s handled conditions and travelled through the race really nicely.
“He’s very much one to look forward to and if he can take as much of a leap from his second to his third start as he did from his first to his second, he’ll be an exciting horse next year for sure.”
Sophia’s Starlight (left) holds off The Eyes Have It (Martin Rickett/PA)
Sophia’s Starlight (18-5) has been a real star for her owners Nick Bradley Racing and she won for the seventh time in the British Stallion Studs EBF Fillies’ Handicap.
Trained by Grant Tuer, five of those successes came last season, and they included the valuable Great St Wilfrid Handicap at Ripon, but it meant she started this campaign in the grip of the handicapper.
She had dropped back down to a mark of 91 which enabled her to win at Newmarket last time out and off 2lb higher, she went in again under Sam James.
“She travels so strongly on heavy ground, turning in I thought it would have to take something that was all right to come and get me,” said James.
“She wasn’t really doing a stroke in front but she likes this ground and she’s in good form.
“Grant and his team have done a great job getting her back to 100 per cent because she had a couple of little, niggly issues, but she felt really well the last time at Newmarket.
“It probably wasn’t the worse thing that she couldn’t run in the summer on faster ground as she likes it soft, so hopefully she can make hay now.”
Beckett’s unexposed Oxford Comma justified 6-5 favouritism to win the Phil Bull Trophy Conditions Stakes under Eddy Greatrex.
Down in class but up in trip having run in the Park Hill at Doncaster last time out, she held off Wise Eagle by a length and a quarter.
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