THE Dubai Duty Free Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury tends not to have a great bearing on the following season’s classics, but the last two winners have been Ribchester and Harry Angel, so there are legitimate hopes for this year’s winner, James Garfield, especially as he broke the course’s six-furlong juvenile record in the process.

That was, unsurprisingly, down to pretty quick conditions; not for Newbury the biblical downpours and overflowing drains experienced elsewhere.

The resulting 106 timefigure for James Garfield would have been higher but for the even faster relative time recorded by the evergreen Take Cover (118 timefigure, the best of the week in Ireland and Britain) in the World Trophy Stakes later on the card. In James Garfield’s favour is that he is likely to be every bit as good at seven-eight furlongs as this six furlongs.

It could, however, be argued that James Garfield was not the best two-year-old on show at Newbury on the day. The win of the odds-on Emaraaty in the second division of the minor event was hugely impressive and came in a useful time, worth a timefigure of 100. The John Gosden-trained colt looks every inch a group performer in the making.

There was also an overdue group win for the Eclipse third Desert Encounter elsewhere on the Newbury card, in the Legacy Cup, though this was a somewhat falsely-run contest in which the winner registered just a 101 timefigure.

BEST TIMEFIGURE

The best two-year-old timefigure of the week in Ireland and Britain came at Naas, not from Saxon Warrior but from Ellthea in the C.L. & M.F. Weld Park Stakes, the Karl Burke-trained raider forging clear late on to score by two and three-quarter lengths and with a 107 performance. That is six behind the best figure this season by a juvenile filly, Happily.

Burke struck again later on at Naas in the Renaissance Stakes with Quiet Reflection, who beat Alphabet by a length and three-quarters more than Caravaggio had done in the Flying Five at the Curragh the time before. In time terms, Quiet Reflection was still below her 121 best, but a figure of 113 was second only to Take Cover among winners in the week and she looks as good as ever. Renneti was a decisive winner of the Group 3 Loughbrown Stakes at a 16-furlong trip that had not otherwise been used at the course in recent times. As a result, no timefigure has been returned.