By Peter Moore at Newbury Friday 25th October 2024
Day one of the Bet Victor Flat Finale with Oktoberfest saw Blewbury trainer Eve Johnson-Houghton pick up a quickfire double after saddling Spirit Of Farhh and Mercian Warrior to victory in the space of half an hour.
Two-year-old Spirit Of Farhh had been hitting the goalpost in his previous two runs after finishing second on debut before finishing third in a maiden at this course 35 days ago.
Ridden by Charles Bishop, the horse led after five furlongs before edging right against the near rail a furlong from home, before keeping on well to win by two and a half lengths.
Bishop was in the saddle to steer bottom weight Mercian Warrior to victory in the 7f Class 3 handicap to get the better of the well fancied Kodi Lion by a length to give both jockey and trainer a double with Johnson-Houghton bettering her best season of winners with win number 55.
Houghton, already has one eye on next season after an impressive performance from Spirit Of Farhh, and firmly believes he will have more to offer next year.
“He’ll be a fun horse for next year, she said. His form is pretty good and the two horses who have beaten him [Diego Ventura and Fast Track Harry] are taking each other on in Listed company at Doncaster.
“He’s big and he’s just got to improve. He went through it better than the others and his experience has helped.”
The opening race on the card the apprentice handicap over 2m went to Zikany who backed up his previous win at Goodwood- by 17 lengths- by once again destroying the field of eight to complete a cosy victory by seven lengths.
Upper Lambourne trainer Richard Hughes is having a season to remember and made it 60 winners so far after Knebworth took the 6f handicap under claimer Ethan Jones.
The connections of Knebworth were made to sweat after a stewards enquiry was announced. After a long time, it was deemed that there was no interference involved between the winner and second Capote’s Dream, with the placings remaining unaltered. However, winning jockey Jones was suspended for two days due to careless riding.
Owners Highclere Racing appear to have another promising juvenile on their hands after Centigrade’s runaway victory in the 1m novice stakes by five an a half lengths from the Andrew Balding trained Furthur.
Centigrade, who fetched €120,000 at the Arqana breeze-up sales, went one better than his short-head defeat on his debut at Sandown and already appears to have a bright future ahead of him.