Universal dominates Princess of Wales’s boylesports.com Stakes – Horseracing news
Universal delivered a thumping performance in the Princess of Wales’s boylesports.com Stakes (Group 2) at Newmarket in England.
The four-year-old colt was given the best odds for victory, but his camp was wary of some other solid stallions, who had been attracted towards the class-1 encounter. However, the favourite horse did not panic under pressure and took a comfortable victory
in the end.
Since the overall distance to cover was more than one mile, none of the horses were pushed hard in the opening stages by their respective jockeys. Despite that, Universal kept on pushing right from the start of the proceedings in order to pressurize his
opponents. He kept on increasing his speed gradually and there was no one, who could cause any problems for him towards the end.
As a result, the Irish stallion finished on top of the table by a comfortable margin of two and a half lengths. His camp was expecting a fight from some of his close rivals, but that was not the case.
Talking about the victorious stallion, trainer Mark Johnston said, “He's been fantastic since he came back from Dubai, a complete revelation since he returned home. Interestingly, he was mostly tried over a mile and a quarter last year, but we always thought
he'd stay further. It would be very interesting to see him over a mile six in something like the Irish St Leger.”
When asked about the future plans of Universal, his trainer added, “The obvious question is do we go for the King George. The owner said let's wait a week before we decide but this horse thrives on his races and barring a physical reason he will go to the
King George. The plan is very much a Group 1.”
On the other hand, the winning jockey Joe Fanning was also delighted with the performance of his stallion and said that things were definitely headed in the positive direction. Talking about the preferences of Universal, he added that the fast ground suits
his running style.
Johnston’s trainee has appeared in a total of 18 races in his career, winning seven of them, which shows that he is quite capable of troubling his opponents with consistency.
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