The Andreas Wohler trained Gostam made the headlines on Wednesday lunchtime with what proved to be a relatively straight forward Group 3 success. Sent to the front by Eduardo Pedroza, he was the fastest horse to gather stride, taking 5.2s to reach 50 km/h when the stalls opened and running the fastest opening 2 furlongs to lead the field out of the back straight. Once around the turn, Pedroza headed for the stands side rail and put the race beyond any doubt with the fastest penultimate furlong, ultimately running out a 2-length winner from the George Scott trained Commander’s Intent. Gostam ranked 1st for Top Speed (61 km/h) and recorded the highest peak average strdie frequency figure in the field at 2.42 per second. The son of Saxon Warrior was a £58,000 purchase at the BBAG sales and looks to be well on the way to repaying that investment. Commander’s Intent has already won a Yarmouth Novice and a Doncaster Nursery this season and came into this race with an official rating of 87 in the UK, but he was readily swept aside by Gostam who had far too much speed for him at the crucial stages of the race.

Gostam is a son of Goiania, a Listed winner over this trip in 2014 who has also produced the US Listed winner Gavea (7f). This 7-furlong trip clearly suits and with such an explosive turn-of-foot at the start of his races, Gostam should continue to be able to dominate races from the front, especially around a bend. He was the fastest horse over the opening quarter of a mile on his debut at Munich in July too, clocking splits of 15.12 and 12.54s as he ultimately beat the Hamburg winner Seguro by 4-lengths. Having now won a Group 3, Gostam will be harder to place, but it will be interesting to see how high Andreas Wohler and Darius Racing now choose to aim their son of Saxon Warrior.