NEWBURY also played home to another Stoute inmate, albeit this time a potential star rather than a confirmed one.
Jubiloso (103) had suggested promise when winning at Chelmsford on her debut – unusual in itself for the Stoute yard – before screaming promise from the rooftops in bolting up in Berkshire last Friday.
Always travelling well on the front end, she set average fractions (104.2% finishing speed), quickened clear under tender handling and extended her lead the further she went.
Ascot was nominated as her next stop with races as lofty as the Coronation Stakes mentioned as a potential target. If there’s anything to dampen your enthusiasm, it’s that she clearly beat a sub-standard feel in winning here.
Sectional comparisons have Jubiloso superior – but not that much superior – to Biometric and Red Armada who finished first and second in the first division of the seven-furlong novice stakes that day and, while rain makes precise comparisons difficult, it’s worth noting that the latter named is only 86-rated and seems unlikely to progress too far beyond that level.
Jubiloso fits the bill as a could-be-anything horse but that description means it’s just as possible that she is “only” Group-3 class as it is that she ends up a Group-1 performer. Time will tell.
Windsor played host to not one but two Godolphin juvenile fillies on Monday night. Divine Spirit (86) and Theory Of Time (87) showed up over five and six furlongs although, given the way they shaped, it’s perhaps likely they’d have been even more impressive racing over the other’s trip.
The clock told us that they were promising, if not quite how promising they could be, and I was particularly taken with Divine Spirit, who didn’t travel like the winner, but was unusually generous under pressure when asked for an effort. That’s a rare commodity in an early two-year-old and I’ll be keeping a very close on her on next start.