Anjaal stuns rivals in Portland Place Properties July Stakes – Horseracing news
Anjaal took everyone by surprise by winning the Portland Place Properties July Stakes (Group 2) at Newmarket in England.
The two-year-old colt was not amongst the favourites to claim the class-1 competition and his camp would have been happy with a top-five finish. However, the young challenger was not prepared to settle for anything less than a victory and he proved his worth
to one and all in the end.
Although the overall distance to cover was just six furlongs, Anjaal was unable to make an impression at the start. His rivals were aggressive right from the start of the race, but he was pretty slow in the opening strides. Moreover, he did not make any
improvement in the next few furlongs, which suggested that he would drop out of the top-five.
However, the impressive runner dominated the final furlong, which put him ahead of all of the other stallions around him. He managed to win by just a neck distance in the end, but that was enough for his owners to earn £45,368. His opponents tried really
hard in the final few strides, but lacked the stamina to hold onto their lead.
After the race, the winning jockey Paul Hanagan was delighted and said, “He's got a great temperament and really did stick his neck out, he couldn't have done any more for me. He was very green first time out and was a lot more relaxed today. He took forever
to get going and will get further.”
On the other hand, assistant trainer Richard Hannon jnr said, “We gave him plenty of time after Beverley and he's done well, putting on a lot of weight. He looks like he wants seven furlongs and it would be nice to think of him as a Dewhurst horse with the
Champagne Stakes at Doncaster in between.”
He went onto say that Anjaal would definitely be tested in some major competitions during the next season, as he has proved that he is quite capable of handling pressure really nicely.
Overall, the winning colt has just appeared in three races until now and was highly unimpressive on his debut. Despite that, he improved a lot with the passage of time and has recorded a couple of back-to-back wins.
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