THE Matron Stakes was fought out by two horses who each show a fascinating pattern to their form.

The winner was Fiesolana (38) who came with a late rush to head Rizeena close home.

Fiesolana broke her maiden over 10 furlongs in Italy but has since shown that she doesn’t last a mile in better company if the track or going is testing.

Ignore her runs beyond a mile, those on soft or heavy ground and others on tracks described as ‘testing’ and you’ll find that Fiesolana has won eight of her other 10 starts since leaving Italy.

Her two losses were both mile contests where she was in the lead close home but then fell back rapidly to finish out of the first four. It was a wise move to hold her up for an ultra-late burst.

Fiesolana’s best effort according to my ratings came when she earned a rating of 40 from me to take the Challenge Stakes over seven furlongs.

I’d say the Prix de la Foret is a logical target for her as it is run over just short of that distance.

Runner-up Rizeena (38) looked the winner and went odds-on in running, only to be run down by the winner late.

It does seem abundantly clear now that she is best suited to more testing tracks.

So far she has won all five times that she’s run on tracks described as testing and lost all eight times she hasn’t.

She’s yet to run fast enough to rate a serious threat to beat the colts in the QEII.

However, she got beaten less than four lengths by Kingman at Deauville which is dead flat.

With the stiff uphill finish to help her, I reckon she should improve on that in the QEII.