Soprano Hits All The Right Notes
Jason Fildes reflects on a fantastic win by Highclere’s two-year-old filly Soprano earlier this month
Wow! What a fantastic debut our two-year-old filly Soprano made at Newmarket last week, stretching clear up the hill to win by one-and-three-quarter lengths.
Soprano took the whole experience of race day in her stride. She was walking round as quiet as a lamb in the pre-parade and then perked up nicely once the saddle had been fitted.
She started strong favourite, which would have been because there was plenty of stable confidence behind her, but trainer George Boughey had warned that the five-furlong might be too short for her. As it turned out she had plenty of pace to be wherever jockey William Buick wanted her and although she slightly missed the break, she was soon well on terms. She quickly settled into a rhythm and William, quite sensibly, got her rolling early as they approached the dip.
The response was fairly immediate as Soprano began to dominate and once she hit the rising ground, it was a case of how far she was going to win by. What an amazing feeling!
The second filly, Midnight Affair, had trouble in running before staying on well, but I don’t think this takes anything away from the manner in which our filly won, which was electric to say the least.
After the race, William was very complimentary, saying: “She’s very smart. She did everything right.” William had a hard job pulling her up as she galloped off up the hill and I think it’s highly likely we will be seeing her over six furlongs next time. When you have a two-year-old win so decisively and act so professionally in early May, it can mean only one thing and that is we almost certainly have a Royal Ascot filly on our hands!
Highclere – Jason Fildes
01200 444622
07721 311778
jason@highclere.co.uk
highclereracing.co.uk
