Como Residences Conditions Stakes
"Devon Island"
The Blue Colours of Godolphin are clearly no stranger to the winner’s enclosure at Meydan, but after a relatively slow start to the UAE season for the boys in blue, they took centre stage on Friday afternoon with the victory of Devon Island in the Como Residences Stakes. This was a very dominant performance from Charlie Appleby’s son of Practical Joke, who took this field apart with a superb penultimate furlong to win going away. The 5.8s that he took to get to 30 mph when leaving the stalls ranked 3rd, but he was able to maintain his early speed under James Doyle to hold that all important early position around the turn. Once into the straight, he began to assert and his stride frequency, which peaked at 2.55 per second, allowed him to use his turn-of-foot to get the better of this field. That peak stride frequency average of 2.55 per second was the best of the first 6 horses to cross the winning line and if you have that kind of speed on the dirt at Meydan, your horse will always be competitive.
A winning time of 1:40.20 was 1.57s slower than the handicap race won by Zandvoort over the same course and distance a couple of hours earlier, but if anything that enhances the form of Devon Island given the amount of distance that he was able to put between himself and the remainder of the field. Devon Island ran an almost identical final furlong split to that of Zandvoort although the latter was ahead of Devon Island by the best part of 8 lengths going into the final furlong. However, it should not be forgotten that I am comparing a 2-year-old with an older horse maiden and as such, an allowance needs to be made. The 2nd placed Brotherly Love (Jamie Osborne) finished 0.9s behind Devon Island in a maiden race at Meydan over this course and distance in November and after running on into 2nd he finished 0.61s behind him on Friday. There is always a need to be slightly cautious when a horse beats the same rival as we already knew that Devon Island was better than Brotherly Love. Na Eem was also behind the pair in November, but the 4th placed Rashwan (Bhupat Seemar) ran well in a trial here 4-weeks ago. Rashwan was drawn in stall 10 and had to work very hard to get across from there under Tadhg O’Shea, recording the fastest top speed figure in the field at 43.31 mph. He tired late on, but he was still in contention at the 2 furlong pole and offered some extra depth to this piece of form.
I really like Devon Island. He has all of the attributes needed to be successful on the dirt. Early speed, a turn-of-foot, the ability to sustain the gallop and handle the long sweeping turns at the top of the straight. If there was such a thing as an Ante Post market for the UAE 2,000 Guineas, he would be at the head of it. This was a solid performance in the Como Residences Stakes and he would appear to be the best 2-year-old that we have seen on the dirt this season, but before you go assuming that he is going to be the Superstar 3-year-old Colt of this year’s carnival, I’d add a note of caution. Devon Island has beaten the same horse twice and the margins between the data recorded by the pair barely changed across the 2 races. It’s possible that they are both improving at the same rate, but it seems more likely that the pair had the benefit of a run on the All-Weather at Kempton before shipping to the UAE and whilst they set a fair standard, it is not an insurmountable one and as such, there is still time for another contender to emerge.