Gran Premio Selección (G1)
Palermo 11th October 2025
This was a 3rd Grade 1 success for the Jose Cristobal Blanco trained Charm, who galloped her way to a relatively comfortable success in the Gran Premio Selección at Palermo on Saturday. Having already won the Gran Premio Estrellas and the Gran Premio de Potrancas at San Isidro, she was sent off a relatively warm favourite at 2.75 and in reality, her backers had very little to worry about. At an average of 25.14 ft, she had the longest stride in the field which reached a race peak of 26.27 ft in the back straight and that long stride, over a foot longer than the runner-up, allowed her to make smooth headway in the latter stages and ultimately to assert her dominance in the final furlong. A winning time of 2:03.94 made this the slowest winning time in the Gran Premio Selección since 2010, but if anything that only enhances her reputation as one of the best Fillies in South America given her race position and the way the pace was set.
Here are my in-running comments; “Allowed to gather stride from the gate, taking 5.4s to reach 30 mph (ranked 8th). Raced 4 wide off the fence, settled in mid-division behind the runaway leader (Mis Locuras). Forced wide in the straight, cantering at the 2 furlong pole. Shaken up and responded well, leading with a furlong to run and asserting to run out a 2 length winner”.
With such a long stride, she is ideally suited by having a pace to aim at and despite being forced very wide around the final turn, she has asserted without ever being fully extended. A top speed of 39.71 mph ranked 2nd of the 10 runner field with only the free going early leader surpassing her for that metric. Having got herself into a challenging position, she was able to close with the fastest final 2 furlong splits in the field and clocked the fastest run-out speed in the field (32.28 mph) as she asserted in the closing stages. A daughter of Strategos, she has won 3 times this season with her only defeat coming in the Gran Premio Polla de Potrancas last month behind Moon Frank. She recorded the fastest top speed in the field that day at 42.52 mph, but was inconvenienced by racing against the far rail and was perhaps a little unlucky given the way the race panned out. Either way, she has quickly made amends for that and the strategy chosen by Martin Valle to keep her away from the inside rail seemed to suit. She has now won 5 of her 6 starts and looks set to continue to dominate in Argentina on this evidence and I would be more than happy to back her to reverse the form with Moon Frank from September were they to meet again.