Prestige run a possibility for Newbury victor Touleen

The Prestige Stakes at Goodwood is a potential next port of call for Touleen following her impressive debut at Newbury last week.

A daughter of Lope De Vega out of Group Three-winning mare Talaayeb, the Shadwell homebred was sent off favourite to make a successful start to her career for trainer Owen Burrows and obliged in some style.

Shadwell’s racing manager, Angus Gold, admitted the performance was beyond his expectations and is excited to see how she performs when upped in class.

He said: “We’ve made an entry for her in the Rockfel and the Fillies’ Mile. I spoke to Owen briefly and he said he’ll see how she is next week and he might think about putting her in the Prestige at Goodwood, or I believe there’s a fillies’ novice coming up at Newmarket possibly.

“Owen had only ever said she went all right. They took her for an away-day at Kempton and Jim (Crowley) liked the feel of her, but they didn’t press any buttons.

“I think that experience stood her in good stead, she was in the right spot in the race and I loved the way she put the race to bed and kept going all the way to the line.

“It wasn’t expected, but it was obviously very nice to see. We’ll give her two or three more runs and see how she takes it all. She’s not a big, robust filly so we’ll just feel our way, but Owen is quite keen to get on and run her in the next three weeks or so.”

Another horse held in high regard by the Shadwell team is Almeraq, who having bolted up in an Ayr handicap last month is set to have his sights raised, with Gold not ruling out the possibility of an immediate step up to Group One level in the Sprint Cup at Haydock.

“He was in a Listed race in France the other day (Prix Moonlight Cloud) but we thought it was going to be too quick,” he added.

“I think there is a Listed race at Newmarket at the end of next week (Hopeful Stakes) so we could look at that, depending on the weather. Or if necessary, if things aren’t going to work and we want to take the bold route, we could go straight to Haydock for the Sprint Cup.

“We’ve missed a lot of the season with him, he’s always been a potentially nice horse and there is no point going down the handicapping route, so let’s just get on and see what the weather does and take it from there.”