Three Performances That Caught The Eye At York

Firstly, one of the stories off the Ebor meeting came on the first day when Pyledriver for trainer William Muir bounced back from a nothing run in the Derby to bolt up in the Group Two Great Voltigeur.

The three year old has been shining light for the yard this term, winning the Group Two King Edward VII Stakes and now taking Group Two glory at York.

What made the performance extra special was two reasons, the first being how easy and the length of distance he went away from the field.

But, the best of them is this horse could not even be sold for £10,000 and he has gone on to run a field into submission that held two horses that both cost over £3 million each.

He looks next heading for the St Leger and he has to be one of the stand out chances.

It was all about Jim Crowley on the Friday of the meeting with the jockey landing the first four winners on the day for his retained owned Hamdan Al Maktoum.

Those winners included, Alfaatik, Enbihaar, Battaash and the horse we believe gave the best performance out of them all was Minzaal, when winning the Group Two Gimcrack Stakes.

He looked to be a rising star for the Owen Burrows yard having made his debut at Ascot in a classy maiden and finishing fourth.

He came on massively for that run and cruised to victory in a Class 5 event at Salisbury, winning by just under four lengths but never coming off the bridle.

In what looked a decent field of juveniles, he again travelled strongly into the six furlong event and when Crowley went for the whip he responded in kind and pulled away from the field.

The final horse that caught the eye for us across the week came in the feature race of the festival with Fujaira Prince labelled a group horse in a handicap and he showed how true that was.

He has been a very talented, but fragile horse for Roger Varian, being six years of age and only racing seven times during his career.

He has shown ability all the way through his career but this term he has truly shown how good he is when landing a decent handicap at the royal meeting by close to four lengths and then taking the Ebor on Saturday.

He could enter the realms of the staying division with Stradivarius looking for more horses to take on.