Aylin had finished behind the beaten favourite Moon Target at Goodwood, but given the length of her stride, it is perhaps not surprising that the track did not suit and her final furlong time of 12.77s did match that of the winner (Precise). The draw in stall 1 perhaps served to make up David Egan’s mind, but having dropped his mount in behind the pace, he did conserve energy at a crucial stage of the race and the first point to note is that she was the only horse to lengthen her stride when the pace lifted with 3-furlongs to run. Having made her way through runners to make her challenge closer to the stands rail, she was the horse with energy left as she ran the fastest final 2-furlongs (12.26 and 13.11s) with the best run-out speed in the field at 32.91 mph. She was a winner on heavy ground in a Goodwood maiden in July, so it is perhaps not a complete surprise that she handled the conditions better than some in this field, but given the strong early pace and the fact that she was given a patient ride in a race run with a finishing speed of 97%, plenty of praise needs to be given to David Egan and the way that he read the pace ahead of him. In his post race interview, Karl Burke implied that perhaps the Prix Marcel Boussac or the Fillies Mile would be next and if she got a similar pace setup in those races, there is every reason to believe that she could take the step into Group 1 company.

I’m not sure that it is as simple as forgiving those who raced prominently in these conditions, but what we can say is that the pace lifted a long way from home as all 8 runners quickened into the 5th furlong. Aside from the winner, the fastest finisher was the eventual 4th Rose Ghaiyyath, who was ridden patiently towards the rear of the field and she has almost certainly benefitted from being held on to. It is certainly not a coincidence that the first 4 horses to cross the line filled the final 4 places at the end of the 3rd furlong. At a peak average stride length of 25.13 ft, Aylin recorded a stride that was 1.28 ft longer than the next best (Pacific Mission 23.95 ft) and as a result, the strong pace and the fact that she had a target to run at with that long stride has clearly helped, but both the 2nd and 3rd have run well in the conditions and on better ground, their connections may hope to reverse this form given that both Pacific Mission and Sugar Island recorded higher top speed figures than the winner.