Chindit
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3:05 G2 Coventry Stakes
Gisburn (Pat Dobbs)
You don’t win Newbury Maidens by six lengths unless you’re a smart horse and this colt clearly benefited from the experience of his first run, and step up to six furlongs, to score very impressively in a race that we’ve often used as a stepping stone towards Ascot and the Coventry was always the plan after Newbury. I’m not saying Gisburn is in the Canford Cliffs league just yet, but he’s certainly going the right way and could easily end up top class. It isn’t going to be easy, look what happened with Threat when he was unlucky not win in 2019, but we’ll definitely find out how good he is and he’s done everything right, is a big strong, good moving horse who goes there with a great chance in what looks a typically competitive affair.
Secret Strength (Tom Marquand)
I can’t believe it took him three attempts to get his head in front because we thought he’d definitely win first time after purchasing him from the Breeze Ups but he finished second when never really looking like winning and he ran pretty moderately on his second run, but he finally got the job done at Musselburgh and despite making it look like hard work, I think he still won with plenty in hand. That was a decent race and hopefully the penny seems to finally be dropping. For winning there I think he gets a bonus if he can follow up at Royal Ascot so it’s more than worth a shot and the step up a furlong is an obvious plus. The 28/1 Unibet are offering looks extremely generous to me!
4:20 G1 St James’s Palace Stakes
Chindit (Pat Dobbs)
I thought he ran very well in the Qipco 2000 Guineas because the bulk of the race took place on the other side of the track and they were all well away from him but he was only beaten just over four lengths which is not to be crabbed and to his credit he ran on very well.
We’re going to take the noseband off, which nearly all our runners race in, because Dobbsy (Pat Dobbs) felt that he wasn’t really facing it so we’re getting rid of that and he worked with his usual zest in his final decent gallop last Tuesday. This is round mile so we’ll ride him a little handier and he’s quite similar in ability to Barney Roy who won this for us in 2017. On homework there is quite a difference because Chindit is much more flashy whereas Barney wasn’t as quick and never showed as much at home as this colt does but on the track there is very little between them on what we’ve seen from Chindit so far.
He’s over the ‘has he hasn’t he trained on?’ because we know he clearly has and he deserves a big pot. Chindit has always been a very good horse and hopefully this is the race to show what he’s capable of.