Judemont’s success at Newbury puts him on track for the Doncaster Classic, so Batefred St Leger’s hope looks set to be an arrest.
Judemont’s success at Newbury puts him on track for the Doncaster Classic, so Batefred St Leger’s hope looks set to be an arrest. The Frankel pony, trained by John Gosden and Thady Gosden, won the Chester Vase on soft ground in May by a wide margin Won but only 10th in the Epsom Derby and 5th in the King Edward VII at Royal Ascot Take…place.
Ground was good to firm on both runs, while Newbury was good to soft. He looked even more relaxed as he edged Frankie Dettori by a stroke and a half in the Jeffrey Freer Championship in the third group. Layman is now the norm, but requires quite a lot of ground to play.
“He obviously won the trial and we know he likes the quietness of the terrain,” said Barry Mahon, from Judmont. “I think the owners have said they’d like to go Ledger Road as long as the soil is loose. , so we’ll go that way.”
Juddmont appears to have another promising horse, ‘Macduff’, who won comfortably on his debut at Newmarket earlier this month. ‘Starfish’ Colt won in a well-behaved group of horses and had remarkable pedigree in her own right as she was a descendant of a mare named ‘Present Tense’, a half-brother to the great Kingman mother’s sister.
Connections was delighted with his first success, but he wasn’t under much pressure as he was expected to flourish at the age of three. “It was a good debut, he’s a good horse,” Mahon said. “He’s a big horse, he won’t race a lot this year, Ralf is taking his time and we’ll probably see how he does in mid-September before choosing another race.”
“He comes from a good family, his mother is Kingman’s sister. He’s a good horse with potential and next year will be his year and I don’t think we’ll be able to overwhelm him this year.”
