Horses who performed well in defeat...

Eve Johnson-Houghton regularly does well with her two-year-olds, and she looks to have another nice one in Gap Year, who finished second in a maiden at Windsor. Unfancied in the market, my eye was drawn to him before the off, as it is a rare one of her youngsters goes off at 25/1. He will no doubt be shorter next time he runs, as he made up a lot of ground to finish runner-up, behind a potentially smart horse in Sergio Parisse. I would not be surprised to see this race work out well, with plenty of winners coming from it.

At the same Windsor meeting, we saw some potentially useful fillies in Cat Ninja and Clove Hitch. The latter, for Andrew Balding, was narrowly denied in a close finish, but shaped with just as much promise as the winner mentioned above. A very eye-catching piece of form that Clove Hitch has on her record is that she finished two- and three-quarter lengths behind Dante Stakes winner, Economics. Her scintillating success recorded an RPR of 119, so there is no reason to think that Balding’s filly cannot get a mark in the 90s.

Relief Rally ran a terrific race when finishing second in the Listed, Carnarvon Stakes at York on Saturday. Held up towards the rear of the field, she was positioned too far back to land a blow on the impressive winner Elite Status but brushed aside her other rivals with the minimum of fuss. Her career highlight to date would be winning the Group 2 Lowther Stakes last season, highlighting the sheer ability she has. However, as was the case this time, her hold-up style of racing generally relies on needing a bit of luck in running, which can be frustrating if the breaks do not appear. Nevertheless, she is a smart filly who has a bright future.

Finally, Richard Hannon looks to have another smart filly on his hands with New Charter, who finished second behind the talented Mountain Breeze at Newmarket. It was a high bar that the winner set heading into the race, and we knew it would take an exciting horse to beat him. New Charter tracked the winner through the race, passing horses with relative ease, and seemingly learning as she went along. She was just unable to catch the winner, who will no doubt have a bright future, but this run was full of promise. She is well-bred and will likely improve a lot for this experience.

Performance of the week:
Audience produced a monumental performance in the Group 1 Locking Stakes to give John & Thady Gosden another success at the highest level. He relentlessly made all, running the finish out of his rivals due to his aggressive pace setting strategy. It was seemingly a case of when is he going to come back to the field, but this did not happen, as he bravely kept galloping through the line. All eyes were on his stable-mate Inspiral, but it was the un-fancied Audience who stole all the headlines.