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Lightening Quick will go a long way to proving whether she has similar ability to her dam, the Group 1 winner, Lightening Pearl, when she contests the Group 2 Shadwell Rockfel Stakes at Newmarket’s Rowley Mile Racecourse on Friday (29th September).
Trained by Ger Lyons, Lightening Quick is one of two Irish runners (alongside Aidan O’Brien’s Butterscotch) in a classy ten-strong line-up for this £109,000 seven furlong event for two-year-old fillies.
Lyons enjoyed the only Group 1 success of his career when saddling Lightening Pearl to claim the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes on the Rowley Mile back in 2011.
A daughter of Frankel, Lightening Quick has run just once, when holding off the highly-regarded Bye Bye Baby by a neck in a maiden at Leopardstown 18 days ago. She was subsequently supplemented for this race at a cost of £10,000.
Other leading Shadwell Rockfel Stakes candidates are the Group 3 Princess Margaret Stakes winner, Nyaleti; Juliet Capulet, runner-up in the Group 3 german-thoroughbred.com Sweet Solera Stakes at Newmarket’s Adnams July Course last month; and two more unbeaten fillies – Gavota and Hikmaa.
The Shadwell Rockfel Stakes is just one of numerous highlights of a superb Shadwell-sponsored seven-race card on Friday. The nine-runner Group 2 Shadwell Joel Stakes also takes centre stage while the Group 3 Princess Royal Nayef Stakes has the Ribblesdale Stakes runner-up, Mori, among its ten contestants.
Then there is the Listed Mukhadram Godolphin Stakes, which has the Coronation Cup second, Frontiersman, among seven declared runners, and the Listed Rosemary Stakes, featuring the Group 1-placed Muffri’Ha in its 15-strong field. The action concludes with the Shadwell Farm Handicap (Silver Cambridgeshire), a £30,000 consolation race for Saturday’s prestigious £160,000 Betfred Cambridgeshire.
Ger Lyons, trainer of Lightening Quick, said:
“It’s very hard to gauge where you are with Lightening Quick as her work has always been average – she only ever does the bare minimum at home. It’s a little quirk of the family - her mother [Lightening Pearl] was much the same, but it didn’t stop her from winning a Group 1.”
“I saw something early on with Lightening Quick to suggest that she was good, but she’s such an intelligent filly and maybe she’s clever enough to know that there is no prize money on offer on the gallops at home.”
“She was working just the same before her maiden win, when she produced a devastating run to shoot down the much more experienced Bye Bye Baby, a filly I know that the Coolmore team likes. If she performs like that again or improves on Friday, the Shadwell Rockfel will be the right spot for her.”
“We were initially thinking about the Cheveley Park Stakes, but having won her maiden over seven furlongs we decided that, with next year’s Classics in mind, a drop back to six furlongs would not be in her best interests, so we supplemented for this race instead.”