Siren's gift-wrapped for Balding
Andrew Balding will aim higher next time with Siren’s Gift after she regained the winning thread in the Prestwold Conditions Stakes over the minimum trip at Leicester.
The speed-packed daughter of Cadeaux Genereux added to a solitary success at Beverley in June 2006 as she came home a neck ahead of The Jobber.
After this 3-1 victory, Kingsclere trainer Balding said: “I think her owner Jeff Smith is intending on keeping her in training next year.
“She has a lot of ability. We will now consider a fillies’ Listed race over five furlongs at Hamilton for her in a couple of weeks’ time.”
Ever-popular trainer Henry Cecil began a busy few days by sending out Teodora Adivina to score in the Isherwood McCann Maiden Stakes.
The master of Warren Place maintained his 50 per cent strike-rate at this track this season as the daughter of Fantastic Light struck by a length and a half from Sun Lane to easily land odds of 5-6.
Cecil, five from 10 here in 2007, will now turn his attention to Doncaster’s St Leger meeting where he has several intended runners before the eagerly-anticipated return of Passage Of Time in Sunday’s Prix Vermeille at Longchamp.
This weekend’s Group One event in Paris will be the first time the daughter of Dansili has been seen out since the Oaks in which she finished eighth after being sent off the 9-4 favourite.
She was subsequently treated for a throat abscess and has been brought back for what will hopefully be a successful autumn campaign.
Cecil said: “I am very pleased with Passage Of Time. She has been working nicely and I’m expecting her to run very well in the Prix Vermeille on Sunday.
“She has also got entries in the Arc, the Breeders’ Cup and the Champion Stakes, but we will just see what happens.”
The only cloud on Cecil’s day was that Burn The Breeze failed to make the frame in the opening EBF Filbert Maiden Fillies’ Stakes.
That went the way of 2-1 favourite Nowaira, who just managed to stave off the late thrust from Baraari for a short-head verdict.
Winning jockey Jamie Spencer said: “Things didn’t really go right as she was too keen and I never got her settled in. She has done well to hold on.”
Ibn Khaldun became the third individual two-year-old domestic winner for Godolphin in 2007 as he took the EBF Apollo Maiden Stakes as a 4-9 shot should do.
The Dubai Destination colt built on a debut fourth at Yarmouth with an ultimately comfortable length and a quarter victory in the hands of Frankie Dettori.
Torquemada loves Leicester – in fact, to be specific he loves the Racecourse Video Services handicap which he took for the third time in four years.
Two of those wins arrived when he was trained by Newmarket trainer Willie Jarvis but this latest one came for Epsom handler Jon Akehurst for whom this was his first outing.
The 5-1 shot travelled supremely on the quick surface and asserted readily late on for a half-length win.
Akehurst said: “He loves the ground and track and it was just a repeat of what Willie has done with him.”
Mwindaji returned the 3-1 winner of the Rancliffe Selling Stakes and was subsequently sold in the auction for 10,500 guineas, with Liam Jones hit with a one-day ban (September 22) for going into the wrong stall on La Belle Joannie.
