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Nell Gwyn Stakes 2011  

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By Dylan Jenear ValueChecker

Sing Softly Heads Betting for Newmarket Guineas Trial
13/04/11

It really feels as though the Flat turf season has began in earnest when the Newmarket Craven meeting comes around and on the first day of the meeting on Wednesday the fillies go on trial for next month’s 1,000 Guineas in the Group 3 Nell Gwyn Stakes.

In recent years the Nell Gwyn has failed to throw up any subsequent winners of the first fillies’ Classic of the season, and I very much doubt that the winner of Wednesday’s race will go on to Guineas glory if returning to the Rowley Mile on May 1.

However, it’s an intriguing race all the same and I am of the opinion that Irish raider Sing Softly will prove hard to beat. She didn’t pull up any trees on her sole start as a juvenile, but has left that form well behind in two starts this season, landing a 27-runner maiden at The Curragh on her reappearance last month before following-up in a Listed heat back at that track 10 days ago.

Admittedly, that form is probably nothing to get overly excited about, but I was impressed with the way Aidan O’Brien’s charge went about her business, proving a length too strong for Defining Year, who had landed a well-contested handicap on his seasonal reappearance. In any case, this contest doesn’t look particularly strong and she’s at least race-fit and progressive.

Maqaasid looked a filly to follow when landing the Queen Mary at Royal Ascot last summer, but was disappointing in the Lowther Stakes at York next time out. She was arguably better than the bare result, having been denied a clear run when third in the Cheveley Park on her final start of 2010, but she needs to prove that she stays 7f and how sharp she will be on her first start for six months is an imponderable.

Ladies Are Forever, who was third in the Queen Mary, is also entitled to come on for the run, so I envisage Elshabakiya emerging as the main danger to the selection. Runner-up in both starts as a two-year-old, she proved that she has trained on when just edged out by Dubawi Gold in a Listed event on her return at Lingfield last month, and the latter franked the form when winning again subsequently.

Recommendation: Sing Softly

 

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