Tigre Du Terre shows his class at Sandown

Sun 08 Jul 2018

TIGRE DU TERRE was in handicap company and racing against older horses for the first time in the 1m £75,000 Class 2 Coral Challenge, but showed his class at Sandown yesterday. 

He travelled strongly in the first half of the field and when asked to quicken off the bend by Tom Marquand, he used his flowing long stride to pull clear and win by just under 2 lengths. A great ride by Tom, which you can see when you watch the replay here: http://www.thejockeyclub.co.uk/video/20180707/2793028/16675466

Many congratulations to his owners, who have been in the winners' enclosure for all of his 9 starts. He has now almost earned twice what we paid for him as a yearling and his win was called a "clear career best" by Racing UK. In his last run in France (taking advantage of the owners premiums), he was just 1/2 a length off Cascadian, who has just finished 2nd by a short neck in the Group 1 Prix Jean Prat at Deauville. We know that his trainer Richard Hannon has always liked him-he resides in Barney Roy's box after all! He's entered in the £150k Golden Mile at Goodwood on August 3rd and is currently joint favourite: https://www.racingpost.com/racecards/21/goodwood/2018-08-03/704703

Raymond Tusk also ran a fine race on only his third start in the Group 1 Coral Eclipse to pick up £10,500 for his efforts. Richard was pleased with his run and he remains in the Arc field and the St Leger would be under consideration.

Both sets of owners had a wonderful day at the Esher track (and of course got to watch the match after racing!)

The prize money won yesterday has now taken us to £531,000 of race earnings for our owners so far this year, which is up on 2017 (and that was a good year!)

*Update 9th July: Raymond Tusk earns a Timeform 105 for his gallant 6th in the Eclipse, yet he’s 8 lbs short of our highest performer on the day; Tigre Du Terre, who has been awarded a huge 113.