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Maidens Maidens Everywhere

August 19th, 2016 | Marten's Current Racing Diary

The better class of long-term two-year-old prospects are starting to appear now, with hardly a day when there is not an interesting maiden race or two, and they don’t come much better than today’s Convivial Maiden Stakes at York, with a remarkable total prize-money of £60,000 shared between the first six places.

The race was won in impressive style by Rivet, a son of Fastnet Rock out of a Galileo mare that won up to a mile. Rivet had shaped well on his debut a month ago at Ascot, running second to a Sheikh Hamdan colt named Eqtiraan. I am not sure how good that race was – the time was ordinary – but Rivet had come on a bundle for the experience and won here today in the manner of a Group-class colt.

Rivet has entries for the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes, the Dewhurst and the Group 2 Champagne Stakes. Given how effective he looked over this seventh furlong I would not be surprised to see him kept to this distance for the Champagne.

Of the others Contrapposto caught the eye with a strong-finishing second while my fancy Via Serendipity looked the winner until tiring inside the final furlong. First Up, well regarded but unfancied today by Jeremy Noseda, also ran a nice race in fifth.

This promises to be a good maiden and I expect time to show that to be the case.

There was a fair sort of maiden run at Sandown today. That was won by Deningy, from market rival Calibration who seemed to take an eternity to get going. I would prefer the runner-up over a longer trip, while further back Meteor Light caught the eye for Ed Vaughan. He would have finished much closer had he found room when travelling well in the final quarter mile.

Bye for now

Marten