Handicappers' Corner: Time to talk about Discourse

Timeform Debate / David Johnson / 08 August 2011 / Leave a Comment

Connections of Sweet Solera winner Discourse have plenty to talk about

"The Sweet Solera has become a key race for the juvenile fillies over the last few seasons, Rainbow View in 2008 and White Moonstone in 2010 both going on to Group 1 success, and it will be a surprise if 2011 winner Discourse doesn’t follow a similar path."

The 2-y-o fillies division burst into life this week with three different performers all posting ratings in excess of 110. David Johnson gives us the lowdown on the improvers, and rounds up the rest of the ratings from around the globe...

The Sweet Solera has become a key race for the juvenile fillies over the last few seasons, Rainbow View in 2008 and White Moonstone in 2010 both going on to Group 1 success, and it will be a surprise if 2011 winner Discourse doesn't follow a similar path.

Discourse's maiden win had been made to look all the better when the runner-up and her stable-companion Gamilati won the Cherry Hinton, and Discourse herself progressed markedly to win the Sweet Solera by four and a half lengths from Lily's Angel.

Race standardisation is perhaps the best guide when it comes to assessing lightly-raced and improving horses, and that process gives a range of 112 to 119 for Discourse's win. She has been given a rating of 116p. Such a figure would have been sufficient to have won three of the last five renewals of the Fillies' Mile, and is just 1 lb below the figure required for the other two.

Discourse wouldn't be sure to have everything her own way should she meet either Maybe or La Collina later in the season. Maybe maintained her unbeaten record with a win in the Debutante Stakes at the Curragh, beating Yellow Rosebud by two and a half lengths.

With Maybe's market rivals failing give their running, she didn't have to show a huge amount of improvement, and her rating rises from 109p to 112p, but she continues to look very professional and she'll hold strong claims in the Moyglare should she come back for it next month.

That race could also be a target for La Collina who won the Phoenix Stakes there later in the afternoon, running to 111p as she swooped late to beat Power by a neck. As a filly she was getting 3 lb from the runner-up and he emerges as the best horse at the weights with a rating of 113.

Frederick Engels could finish only sixth, but that tells nothing like the full story and he'd surely have gone very close but for meeting significant interference over a furlong out, in front of the winner and travelling better at the time. Frederick Engels has been rated a narrow winner (raised to 115), and will have his say in a Group 1, the Morny reportedly his next target.

Elsewhere at the Curragh, Deacon Blues added further interest to what is shaping up to be an unexpectedly good second half of the year for the sprinters. He won the Phoenix Sprint Stakes by seven lengths in effortless fashion, and even a low view of the race - both second and third have been judged to be over a stone below their best - sees him rated 127+.

It was a relatively quiet week in Britain, with the win of Class Is Class in the Rose of Lancaster Stakes the best performance. Both race standards, and prior ratings standards point to a figure in the low 120s, and for now a conservative view has been taken of the form and his rating remains unchanged on 120.

It was a similar story with Oaks winner Dancing Rain, who added the German version to her CV with a win in Dusseldorf. She was 9 lb clear of the opposition going into the race and won as easily as her form entitled her to.

In France, Moonlight Cloud (now 122), dropped down again in trip and showed improved form to win the Prix Maurice de Gheest at Deauville in taking style by an official margin of four lengths (it looked a fair bit less) from Society Rock. There were five other British-trained horses further behind, one of whom was the July Cup winner Dream Ahead, who was a disappointing seventh.