Sandown Classic Trials Day Review
24th April 2026
The sun has begun to shine more regularly and now that the Jumps season has come to an end in the UK, the Flat season is now centre stage. The Guineas meeting is less than 7 days away and as a result, it is definitely time to switch codes if you haven’t already. Friday’s Classic Trial card at Sandown Park looked superb on paper and the presence of several of last season’s top performers on the card was enough to persuade me to break the coffee shop routine and head to Esher for a day at the races. It certainly didn’t disappoint and served to whet the appetite for the season ahead. Here is my review of the best of the action;
BET365 GORDON RICHARD STAKES (G3)
There was very little between Almeric and Saddadd in the market and it was no surprise to see their prices closing as things got closer to the off. The pair were very closely matched on their 3-year-old form, but as the Gordon Richards Stakes began to develop on Friday, it became clear that it was Roger Varian’s horse who appeared to have taken the bigger step forward. It can be very hard to assess the fitness of a grey horse in the paddock, but to eye there didn’t appear to be a great deal between Almeric and Saddadd in terms of fitness and both appeared to have every chance in a race run with a finishing speed of 106%. Once brought out wide for a run, Saddadd responded readily for Ray Dawson and was the fastest horse in the field over each of the final 3 furlong splits as he swung past both Almeric and King of Cities, despite leaning slightly to his right in the final furlong. If we were to take the form of King of Cities literally, then it would be fair to say that Saddadd has run to at least 5 lbs above his official rating of 107 and ought to be capable of taking another step forwards with the benefit of this first run since September. A final quarter of a mile run in 23.96s was 0.65s faster than anything else and included the fastest individual furlong split of the entire contest (11.60s for the penultimate furlong). It can be difficult to make comparisons between races, even over the same course and distance, but at the point that Saddadd was asked for maximum effort on Friday afternoon, he was recording faster late speed (36.95 mph) and run-out speed (32.88 mph) figures than Raaheeb in the Classic Trial just over an hour later. He holds an entry in the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh next month and on this evidence, he wouldn’t be out of place in that field.
BET365 MILE (G2)
It might be some time before we see a better race than this on paper. The Flat season has only just begun, but to have so many G1 performers in the same race made it worth the admission fee on Friday alone. When Opera Ballo won the Jebel Hatta at Meydan in January, I discussed in my TPD blog the fact that he had clearly benefitted from going around a bend and getting a lead into the latter stages of his races. So, whilst he had race fitness on his side and William Buick was clearly keen to use that to his advantage, I would have made him a big price to try and make the running, let alone make every yard. However, Opera Ballo is a reformed character these days and in truth, he dominated this contest from start to finish. Opening furlong splits of 15.78 and 12.34s got him to the front and from there he was in complete control. The fastest horse at the start of the race, William Buick was able to conserve his energy around the bend before winning the race with an injection of pace in the 6th furlong. He finished strongly, closing with a 12.45s final furlong and the best run-out speed in the field (32.57 mph), but that might have been expected given that he had a winter season in Dubai in his favour. I really like Opera Ballo and every time I have seen him run so far this year I have thought that he is becoming more and more professional, but the data from TPD would certainly offer some hope for a few of the horses that chased him home on Friday afternoon.
Firstly, I want to touch on Never So Brave. He was a winning selection for me in this column at Royal Ascot so I have always had a soft spot for him, but I thought he was much better value than an 8 length defeat and a 5th placed finish on Friday might suggest. He traveled nicely into the latter stages of the race and his 5th and 6th furlong times were within 0.1s of both the winner and the runner-up. He briefly looked like making a challenge as they entered the final quarter of a mile, but a combination of a lack of race fitness and the fact that he is probably at his best over 7 furlongs took their toll. We can’t really be sure how fit he was, but I liked the way that he traveled into the race and I think he should find plenty of good opportunities this year. However, whilst he showed some promise, the horse that really needs to be taken from this race is Field of Gold. Things didn’t really go to plan for the Gosden’s charge last season after his victory in the St James’s Palace Stakes, but I thought that he showed plenty of promise on Friday and he did look to be carrying some condition in the paddock beforehand. Colin Keane was eager to keep him settled behind the pace, but once the race began to develop, he made significant headway to move from 5th to 2nd place. Having raced towards the rear of the 6 runners, I think it is an important point to note that he was 0.65s behind Opera Ballo at the halfway point and that crossing the line that gap had narrowed to 0.5s. It’s a small point, but it does show that he was able to more than match a race fit Opera Ballo over the final 4 furlongs. Whilst it needs to be acknowledged that Opera Ballo was conceding weight all round and that he was the best horse on the day as a result, there are plenty of reasons to think that Field of Gold could reverse this form, especially over a straight mile.
BET365 CLASSIC TRIAL (G3)
Having made my way to Sandown on Friday afternoon with the view that it was worth making the journey from Kent to see the Bet365 Mile, I left with the view that it was worthwhile because of the performance of Raaheeb and that everything else had simply been a bonus. He has the kind of pedigree that will always make people stand to attention, but whilst he came into Friday’s race with potential, he left with a sense that he is going to the best of this field and by some distance if he continues to improve. Rossa Ryan always appeared to be moving comfortably aboard Owen Burrows horse and having sent him to the front with a quarter of a mile to run, I felt that he was ridden in the manner of a good horse. For a brief moment at the furlong pole it looked as if he may be swallowed by Al Zanati and Wise Prince, but when asked to stretch, Raaheeb responded and cleared away to win by 3 lengths. A final furlong split of 12.74s was a race best figure and interestingly that was the only time in the race that Raaheeb ran the fastest split in the field. He holds entries for both the Derby at Epsom and the Irish Derby a month later and shaped on Friday like a horse who will get 12 furlongs with relative ease, though his connections post-race comments suggested that he is far from certain to head to Epsom. This was just his 2nd start and we can’t be overly certain about what he may have beaten in the Classic Trial, but having recorded the fastest finishing speed and the longest stride in the field, he shaped like a horse who is on a steep upward curve of improvement and there is surely more to come. We are about to enter the “3-year-old” season and there will be plenty of exciting horses in the classic generation to get excited about in the next few weeks, but I think it will take something exceptional to rank above Raaheeb after Friday’s performance.