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Thursday, 2 April 2015

In Search of the "Wow" Factor ?



With Mark Johnston winning all three two year old races last Saturday the temptation for everyone will be to back all his 2yo's over the coming weeks...but can they all win ?

It's unlikely that they will, but he is supported by some top owners so I would imagine he will have a reasonable strike rate but the prices are likely to be skinny and there may be value to had by opposing some Johnston runners and siding with other trainers who specialise with 2yo's when in opposition.

Looking at the 2yo's the yard currently has there would appear to be 127 although at present I can only find 123. Chief patron Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Al Maktoum looks to have about 55 2yo's at the stable and Cape Cross is responsible for 13 of those.

Of the 123, I can identify, there are 78 colts and 45 fillies. Previous stable light Shamardal is represented by 7 inmates as is Exceed and Excel.

First season sires represented are Poet's Voice (5), Pour Moi (2) and Roderic O'Connor (2). Lonhro is a shuttle sire from Australia who set an Australian record of 160 individual winners in a season in 2013/14 so he is one to keep an eye on and there are 4 by him one of which Rah Rah has already won. There are two other fillies by him and one colt and they will all run for Sheikh Hamdan.

The three 2yo winners at the weekend were Ravenhoe(Bahamian Bounty), Buratino(Exceed and Excel) and Rah Rah(Lonhro) of which the best Racing Post topspeed figure of the three (80) was attributed to Buratino who overcame a slow start to produce a decent turn of foot to win readily.

The Johnston stable isn't resting on its laurels numbers wise and yesterday they were at the Brightwells Ascot Sales were the trainer purchased a Pastoral Pursuits colt for £52,000 and a Showcasing filly for £26,000.
If you watch the breeze ups it's not difficult to work out the fastest breeze will probably generate the most interest and that too was the case yesterday with a colt by Siyuoni doing just that going for the top sale figure of £90,000 and maybe we will be seeing him come up the very same straight in June.
Is it that simple you may ask.... well maybe not as the Johnston stable have recently employed the services of James Willoughby and Jason Hathorn to find some value by adopting statistical research and time analysis in order to find future stars and I presume that yesterdays purchasers were the first of this method for the stable.
Time will tell whether they have found value or not but the Pastoral Pursuits was the second highest purchase price so you would hope they have.