The Spinster Stakes was largely billed around the battle between Thorpedo Anna and Nitrogen, but instead it was the Brendan Walsh trained Gin Gin who took an enormous step forward to land a first Grade 1 success. We will come to the beaten favourites in a moment but first I’d like to focus on the winner, because there was certainly no fluke about her victory. Sent off at odds of 20/1, this clearly wasn’t an easy victory to predict and she had been a long way behind Thorpedo Anna when 4th in the Fleur de Lis Stakes at Churchill Downs on her latest start. However, freshened up by a break of 99 days and perhaps more importantly a change of tactics, she delivered a superb performance from the moment that the gates opened. Although her top speed figure of 40.2 mph ranked 4th of the 5, she showed a lot of early speed, getting herself across from stall 1 with opening furlongs of 12.72, 11.35 and 11.57s. This enabled her to hold the rail down the back straight, keeping her rivals slightly wider and saving approximately 7m of ground compared to the runner-up around the first turn. This was a key decision by Luis Saez, who was riding the horse with the shortest average stride length in the field (23.21 ft) and as a result saving as much ground as possible was a significant advantage. With 4 furlongs to run, Gin Gin came off the bridle and it looked likely that Nitrogen would swallow her up as they turned for home, but to her immense credit she continued to respond to her rider. Over the final 4 furlong splits, she was never more than 0.07s slower than Nitrogen in an individual furlong and once she had seen off her younger rival, she proceeded to run the fastest final furlong in 13.52s with a run-out speed of 31.43 mph, eventually winning by a head. Her previous best came when winning the Grade 3 Baird Doubledogdare Stakes at Keeneland in April and this was clearly a significant step up from all of her previous form. However, both victories have come with front-running tactics and given her early speed and relatively short stride, that looks to be the best way to campaign her from now on.

There don’t appear to be any obvious excuses for the beaten horses. Nitrogen came into this race on the back of winning the Grade 1 Alabama Stakes at Saratoga in August and appeared to have every chance, especially in receipt of a weight for age allowance. She ran her race and it may simply be case that the aggressive ride from Saez on the winner forced her to race wider than ideal around both turns. Thorpedo Anna looked in trouble at halfway as she began to lose ground as the field left the back straight. Kenny McPeek gave a post race update to say that no physical issue had been found and that she had scoped clean, which is great news. She clearly hasn’t run her race on Sunday and hopefully a reason can be found, but this performance will soon be forgotten given the CV that she already has.

Scylla finished 3rd for Bill Mott and the Juddmonte team who were attempting to win a race that they sponsor. She hasn’t managed to win a race since landing the Fleur de Lis stakes in June 2024, but she continues to run well at the highest level. This was her first attempt at the 9 furlong trip since winning that race at Churchill Downs and she was ridden with that in mind, but she finished well, closing with furlongs of 12.84 and 13.52s, which made her the fastest horse over the final quarter of a mile. The fact that she was ridden behind the early battle for the lead was a contributing factor to that finish, but she also recorded the fastest run-out speed in the field at 32.14 mph. As the filly with the longest stride in the field, this setup looks perfect for her and now that her connections can be sure that she stays this far, it will open up more options for her in the future.