Watch: Varian newcomer gains remarkable win at Kempton

Raammee produced a remarkable late surge to make a winning debut at Kempton Park on Wednesday night. 

The Roger Varian-trained three-year-old had been the subject of good reports and went off 10-11 favourite for the first division of the mile novice stakes, but his supporters must have feared the worst after he began slowly, ran green and was still well adrift of Vronti, his market rival, approaching the final furlong of what had been a slow-run race. 

Silvestre de Sousa could have been excused dropping his hands and letting Raammee come home in his own time, but he kept pushing and his partner, carrying the yellow silks of Sheikh Ahmed Al Maktoum, suddenly went into overdrive to snatch victory not so much from the jaws of defeat, but the bowels. 

“That was outrageous,” Racing TV’s Tom Stanley observed moments after Raammee had got up in the final strides, to eventually win by half a length. 

Varian explained he and his team had always liked the gelding, but that he had been immature and only really began to click in the last six weeks. 

The runner-up, trained by Richard Hannon, pulled 7½ lengths clear of the third home. 

RaceiQ’s data confirmed that the runners had crawled for much of the way, making Raammee’s dramatic late pounce even more taking.

It looked long odds-on that he would finish out of the frame when he was seventh with two to run, and it was not as if the clear leader was suddenly treading water. 

Raammee clocked a stunning final furlong of 11.12sec to snatch the spoils. By some margin, that was the quickest furlong of the entire card, and only 15 horses, out of 8,483, have recorded faster final furlongs at Kempton in the RaceiQ database.

It was a smidgeon swifter than Notable Speech, the subsequent 2000 Guineas winner, had managed when making such a taking debut debut over the same course and distance early last year in a similarly steadily-run contest.

The son of Persian King was almost a full second quicker than the runner-up in the final furlong, hitting his highest speed for the whole race, 40.72mph, in those dramatic closing stages. His finishing speed percentage of 114.57% was 5 per cent higher than anything else in the ten-runner field. 

Exactly what Raamee achieved in terms of form is questionable, for all the runner-up had previously gone close at Haydock, but this was a striking start. 

Varian suggested afterwards he would be looking for another novice event for him.