Newbury Saturday

UNTIL the weekend, Owen Burrows’s Tabdeed had looked something of a flat-track bully, with an impressive strike-rate, but a disappointing record at stakes level, but he belatedly proved himself a genuinely group-class sprinter, by swooping late under a typically cool Jim Crowley to beat the other 4/1 joint-favourite The Tin Man (James Fanshawe/Oisin Murphy) by half a length.

Shine So Bright (Andrew Balding/Silvestre de Sousa), unable to dominate on this occasion, did well to keep on for third, a further two lengths behind.

Tabdeed has not taken much racing, this representing only the eighth race of his life at the age of five. He’s now won five of those races, and while he’d been unplaced on his previous tries in Group 3 company, his only moderate run to date came in the Bengough Stakes at Ascot last autumn.

He’d been a non-staying 12th in the 2018 Jersey Stakes, albeit shaping much better than the result until his stamina ebbed away, and his other defeat came on his return this season at Newcastle when second in a high-class handicap to Glen Shiel.

Owen Burrows believes that gelding Tabdeed since last season has made him easier to train, although it remains to be seen whether he can endure a full campaign.

If so, he will be aimed at the Haydock Park Sprint Cup, albeit with the proviso that he would like the ground no quicker than good, but at the same time not genuinely testing. He seems ideally suited by being delivered late off a strong pace, and that is very much how this race panned out.

The Tin Man is arguably not the force of old, but he was only half a length away from recording Group 1 wins in four consecutive seasons when beaten by Hello Youmzain in the Sprint Cup last term, and it would be unwise to suggest he can no longer make a splash at the top level.

This effort was almost on a par with his Haydock run last autumn, and he’s certainly worth another crack at that race and/or the British Champions Sprint in October with the division appearing at least as open as it was 12 months ago.

ONE who looks sure to make his mark at a higher level in the coming weeks is Martyn Meade’s Method, who fulfilled the huge promise of his debut when landing the Listed Rose Bowl Stakes on Saturday under Oisin Murphy. He beat Fev Rover by just over four lengths that day at Doncaster, and that filly was an excellent second in the Duchess of Cambridge Stakes and put to bed any notion that she was flattered by that when landing the Listed Star Stakes at Sandown on Tuesday evening for Richard Fahey and Ben Curtis.

Method had the winning of the Rose Bowl on that debut form, but once again he outclassed his rivals to give his sire Mehmas his first blacktype winner as a stallion. The Richmond Stakes at Goodwood or the Prix Morny at Deauville are pencilled in as the next potential targets, while Meade has his eyes set on either the Middle Park and the Dewhurst at Newmarket in the autumn for a colt he sees as a 2000 Guineas candidate.

The Super Sprint produced another very useful winner on Sunday in the shape of Happy Romance (Richard Hannon/Sean Levey) who merely had to match the form of her fifth in the Queen Mary Stakes to run out an easy winner from JoJo Rabbit and Soldierpoy, with her market rivals Get It and Lullaby Moon both failing to figure.

This was a valuable payday for first-time owners the McMurray family, and the fact that she will find life much tougher back in group races is unlikely to concern them too much.