GALEOLA will also be of interest wherever she goes next. Sheila Lavery’s filly looked very good in winning the finale at Leopardstown on Thursday. The winning time was slow, the slowest of the evening, but that’s because Donnacha O’Brien rode a canny race on Kangaroo Valley from the front, stacking the field up all the way down the back straight.

Several members of the chasing pack raced more keenly than ideal, including Galeola herself, but Robbie Colgan was alive to the sedate pace, he allowed his filly move gradually up on the outside, not too far off the leader. While she was unavoidably three wide going around the home turn, she was in the right position for when the inevitable sprint for home began, and she showed a really smart turn of foot to settle the race as a contest quite quickly.

The John Lavery-owned filly is a seriously progressive filly. She won over Thursday’s course and distance just two months ago off a mark of 53, and she was winning a much better race off a mark of 73 on Thursday. If the ball had hopped a little differently in the Ladies Derby at the Curragh on Irish Oaks day, she would now be a winner of her last four races.

She still has to go a fair way higher than 73 if she is to get into blacktype territory, but it is interesting that her trainer thought enough of her to give her an entry in the Group 3 Give Thanks Stakes at Cork next Saturday. She is progressive enough to be fully deserving of her place in that company.

“She [Enable] will tell us. She’s very expressive. She’ll tell us what she wants to do. We had a chat about it yesterday.” – John Gosden