After the long dry spell, it was entirely predictable that rain would arrive in time for an end of summer bank holiday, leaving ground conditions turning to an unseasonal soft for our two day fixture. Once upon a time, two day fixtures were hugely popular when horses and spectators would descend upon a venue in festive mood; nowadays our time-poor audience has to be more selective in their approach to racing.
Bank holiday fare is often not of the best quality, but regulars at Ripon will have noticed we try to buck the trend, as illustrated by Monday’s Listed British Stallion Studs EBF Two Year Old Trophy, our £50,000 6f feature. Amidst a two days punctuated by Yorkshire winners, this was one that got away, Amo Racing’s Silent Beauty adding to her Yarmouth maiden with this listed success, having found the Albany Stakes at the Royal Meeting hot company. David Egan had the Night of Thunder filly prominent throughout, leading from two out to score decisively by 3l from Rogue Jewel. This was something of a relief to trainer Kevin Philippart de Foy, getting the £1m purchase back on track after Ascot.
Silent Beauty wins our feature
Egan had to give way 30 minutes earlier when failing by a half length on 1/3 favourite Time Free to another Newmarket-trained horse in Feelin’ Free, a Connor Beasly-Jack Jones combination in the restricted novice event over 1m3f. The favourite was only headed in the final strides.
Travellers Girl got off the mark at the sixth attempt in the opening 6f maiden for juveniles under Kevin Stott to produce a 19th winner of the year to date for Roger Fell, who is within a winner of topping the £200,000 prizze money mark. The rain didn’t prevent smiles all round.
It was a 1-2 for David O’Meara in the most valuable handicap of the day, the Ripon Rowells, over a mile, Spoken Truth getting the better of stablemate Mirsky by a comfortable 1 1/2l, under Daniel Tudhope, his fifth winner at the course this year, a record of just over one in four rides.
Mark Winn, jockey of Mirsky, went one better in the day’s finale, division II of the Napoleons Casino & Restaurant Classified, when sneaking a neck success on Simon Whitaker’s Tiberio Force.
