Falmouth Stakes – Time Piece picked up her first Grade 1 victory for Sir Henry Cecil at Newmarket
The four-year-old daughter of Zamindar, Time Piece, broke through to land the biggest win of her 3-year career in the $255,742 English Grade 1 Ethihad Airways Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket Racecourse on 8 July.
The Sir Henry Cecil trained bay filly was sent off as 6 to 1 favourite to win the race.
Sir Henry Cecil has been very careful about where to spot the homebred at Juddmonte Farm, Time Piece, and which race to save her for.
The champion trainer has been very patient with the four-year-old filly, but all the patience paid off as Time Piece captured a Grade 1 victory for the first time.
The Richard Hannon trained Memory failed to make a proper break out of the gates that made the predicament in hand doubly difficult as she could never recover from falling back behind so early in the race.
The three-year-old bay filly refused to run in the QIPCO 1,000 Guineas back in May.
Owned by Khalid Abdullah, Time Piece with jockey, Tom Queally, ran a steady race in the early stages of the race.
A field of 11 fillies and mares had the Group 1 winner, Sahpresa , sent as a lukewarm favourite as he ran a perfectly good race but the day belonged to Time Piece.
In the 1 mile event, Time Piece tracked Masaya in the early stages. Masaya continued to set an easy pace in the first part of the race, but gained pace eventually as she got in to her strides.
That did not faze Time Piece as she was hot on her heels and picked up the pace to go past Masaya.
It was the daughter of Zamindar’s initial show of intentions to grab the race by the scruff of the neck and she did exactly that as she took the roll form Masaya to set a speedy pace.
The threat was always the slight favourite, Sahpresa, who sat off the pace but gave it a real go in the final furlong.
However, Time Piece easily held her charging run off and defeated her by 1 ¼ lengths. Time Piece's final time over the good turf course was 1 minute and 41.06 seconds.
Prior to the Falmouth Stakes, Time Piece came off a fresh win in the listed race called the Warwick Oaks Stakes at the Warwick race course. There she outran a field of 10 fillies over a distance of 1 mile and 3 furlongs.
Sir Henry Cecil ran his four-year-old filly in another Grade 1 race prior to the Falmouth Stakes, in the 2010 Group 1 Investec Oaks, but the filly disappointed and finished 9th.
Time Piece takes her winning tally up to six wins out of thirteen starts, a commendable record.
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