THE Group 3 Newmarket Academy Godolphin Beacon Project Cornwallis Stakes (to give it its full ceremonial title) has been a happy hunting ground for fillies, with Tim Easterby’s 10/1 shot Winter Power (Silvestre de Sousa) becoming the sixth of her sex to triumph in the past decade, and the second from her stable after Ponty Acclaim in 2011.
Winter Power was always better placed than favourite Method (Martyn Meade/Oisin Murphy), who was tackling five furlongs for the first time.,
Travelling well in front, Winter Power put her seal on the race coming to the dip as the runner-up was running into traffic problems. She kept on well up the hill to score by three lengths, with Paul Midgley’s Burning Cash a neck behind the runner-up at the line.
Winter Power flopped in the Flying Childers at Doncaster behind the third, but landed the Listed Harry Rosebery Trophy at Ayr next time, and built on that by scoring here, clearly much better with ease in the ground than on a fast surface.
Method didn’t look a natural five-furlong performer here, but this race did the job for him after he was far too full of himself in the Middle Park where his saddle also slipped, and he can do better over further as a three-year-old, bearing in mind the huge promise of his first two runs.
Authoritative
Just over an hour later, de Sousa and King Power Racing were in winning form again with Happy Power (Andrew Balding) who ran out an authoritative winner of the Group 2 Challenge Stakes, getting the better of the game front running Pogo (Charlie Hills/Kieran Shoemark), in a race where only that pair really featured in the closing stages.
The winner, a 7/2 chance, gradually got the better of a protracted battle with Pogo, and he had a length and a half to spare at the line. Glorious Journey (Charlie Appleby/James Doyle) did not help his chance with a slow start, but kept on best of the others to finish in third place.
De Sousa rounded off a brilliant day in the blue and white of King Power when Angel Power ran out a comfortable winner of the Group 3 Darley Pride Stakes for trainer Roger Varian.
The three-year-old daughter of Lope De Vega has progressed with each run this term and landed a hat-trick with another personal best display here.
PAUL Nicholls recorded a brilliant four-timer at Chepstow yesterday, indicating he will be a force to be reckoned with at the Welsh track today.
The 11-time champion jumps trainer took the feature event, the Grade 2 Unibet Persian War Novices’ Hurdle, with McFabulous, who ran out a massively impressive winner, cruising away from his nearest pursuer after the last.
The six-year-old, a second season novice hurdler here, received quotes as short as 10/1 for the Stayers’ Hurdle. Harry Cobden rode three of Nicholls’s four winners - Thyme White in the opening four-year-old handicap hurdle and Flic Ou Voyou who impressed with a wide margin victory in a novice hurdle.
The other Nicholls winner was ridden by Bryony Frost who partnered the grand old servant Present Man to win the veterans’ handicap chase.