Emerging talents shine ahead of big weekend for established stars
Racenews
21 July, 2025
Classy juvenile Wise Approach and improving filly Spirited Style set themselves up for significant rises in class after impressive Listed wins last week, with heavyweights Rebel’s Romance and Sovereignty set to return to the racetrack this Saturday.
Wise Approach had finished second in the G2 Norfolk Stakes and the Mehmas colt outclassed his rivals with an easy four-length win in Friday’s Rose Bowl Stakes at Newbury.
He looks set to remain over six furlongs for next month’s G2 Gimcrack Stakes at York’s Ebor Festival, a race in which subsequent Champion Two-Year-Old Shadow Of Light filled the runner-up spot last year.
Three-year-old Spirited Style made it two wins from three starts as she comfortably beat older opposition in the Ric And Mary Hambro Aphrodite Stakes at Newmarket on Saturday. The daughter of Sea The Stars is out of multiple G1 winner Wild Illusion and looks certain to make her mark in Group company over the coming months.
Theurgist returned to the level of form of his Listed Keiyo Stakes win last year as he captured a dirt Stakes race at Fukushima on Sunday. It proved a notable weekend at the same course for Ghaiyyath, with his first runner in the country taking a newcomers’ race 24 hours earlier.
Saratoga’s reputation for causing upsets struck again on Saturday, with last year’s Champion Two-Year-Old Filly Immersive finishing a distant second behind Scottish Lassie in the G1 Coaching Club American Oaks. Kentucky Oaks winner Good Cheer also met with a surprise defeat at the course’s G1 Acorn Stakes last month.
Two of Godolphin’s flagbearers are due to be in action on a significant Saturday on both sides of the Atlantic. Godolphin’s most decorated horse, Rebel’s Romance, lines up in the G1 King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes having finished third in the Ascot highlight 12 months ago.
Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes hero Sovereignty runs in the leading prep race for next month’s G1 Travers Stakes, the G2 Jim Dandy Stakes, at Saratoga. The form of his Triple Crown race wins received a significant boost over the weekend as Journalism, runner-up in both contests, captured the G1 Haskell Stakes in thrilling fashion.
