Under The Radar: Stephen Thorne's six to follow this weekend

Stephen Thorne sent out Pink Oxalis to win the Autumn Fillies Handicap at Leopardstown last year, the last race on the first day of the Irish Champions’ Festival.  

The trainer thought that his filly was in good form going into the race, but she was drawn in stall 21, and they don’t get much wider than stall 21.  Her draw tempered enthusiasm, but she overcame it, delivered with her run down the near side by David Egan to get up and win by almost two lengths.

“We really didn’t think that she had much of a chance from her draw,” says the trainer now.  “We were hoping that she would run a nice race, that her owners would have a good day out, but she was great.  That’s what she wants, a fast pace and coming through horses.”

It was a big win for the trainer.  A premier handicap, a high-profile race on one of the marquee weekends of the season.  This year, Pink Oxalis is on her way back to Leopardstown, and she is reported to be in fine form again by Stephen Thorne, who bagged the first listed race win of his career when he sent out Jagged Edge to win the Ruby Stakes at Killarney last month.  

She hasn’t won since she won the Autumn Fillies & Mares Handicap at the Irish Champions’ Festival last year, but she wasn’t beaten far at Leopardstown last time in a race that was not run at a strong pace, and she is back down to a mark of 86, just 1lb higher than the mark off which she won last year.

Mayflower did well to win her maiden on her racecourse debut at Leopardstown in July last year after missing the break.  She missed the rest of her juvenile year, but she acquitted herself well in stakes company in the early part of this season.  She has raced just six times in her life, and there could be more to come from her.

He was good in winning the Mallow Handicap at Cork in June off a mark of 89, and he was short of room at a key stage in the race when he finished sixth off a mark of 96 in the Colm Quinn BMW Mile at Galway next time.  He was sent off as favourite for the Sovereign Path Handicap last year when he finished fourth, racing off a mark of 97, and he is 4lb lower this year.

He is a really interesting new recruit to the Stephen Thorne team, bought, as he was, at Tattersalls in July.  He showed a lot of ability last year for Jack Channon, winning a handicap at Haydock in August last year off a mark of 95, and then getting to within two lengths of this year’s Prix Jacques le Marois runner-up Zeus Olympios in the Group 3 Superior Mile at Haydock’s Sprint Cup meeting last year.

Another relatively recent recruit to the yard, he showed a lot of ability when he was with Jack Davison, he won a Group 3 race at Newbury over five furlongs on soft ground as a three-year-old, and he won a listed race at Naas last year over six furlongs on yielding ground.  He shaped encouragingly too on his first run for Stephen Thorne in a five-furlong handicap at Navan on Saturday off a mark of 93, and he should come forward from that.

He holds an entry too in the Sovereign Path Handicap on Saturday, but it looks like he will join Thunderbear in the Bold Lad Handicap on Sunday.  He kept on well to get up for third place in the race last year on his first run for Stephen Thorne, and he goes into the race on the back of a good run at Dundalk last month.  His respective ratings on all-weather and turf say that he is a better horse on the synthetic surface than he is on grass, but he still could be well handicapped on turf.