Dear My Friend provided Charlie Johnston with a first Listed winner as a sole trainer as he tenaciously won the Listed talkSPORT Burradon Stakes, the opening contest on today’s All-Weather Finals Day card at Newcastle.
Owners Middleham Park Racing and Michael Lai gave the Pivotal colt a second entry in the Derby earlier this week and that decision looks well-founded as he stayed on gamely to score by a neck over Flight Plan.
Held up towards the rear of the 11 runners by James Doyle following a messy start, Dear My Friend started to go through the gears as tearaway leader Tenjin came back to the field entering the final quarter-mile.
Six horses looked to hold chances approaching the furlong-pole before Flight Plan and Dear My Friend went clear soon after. Dear My Friend asserted in the final strides, with the front two pulling two and a quarter lengths clear of Galeron.
Johnston said: “Fair play to Mike Prince [from Middleham Park]. The entries for the Dante and the second entries for the Derby were on Tuesday, and I’d phoned Mike to say we’ll put Dear My Friend in the Dante, and he said, ‘let me have a think about the Derby and I’ll phone you back’. So fair play to him, it was his idea.
“A lot went wrong early today. Dear My Friend got quite badly squeezed coming out of the gates and was put onto the back foot. At that point I was fearing the worst. He had to make a lot of ground up through the middle part of the race and that can often tell in the closing stages, but fair play to the horse, he toughed it out well.
"James said he travelled beautifully and moved through the pack very comfortably. He has a big long stride, so you would be confident about going up in trip in due course.
“The obvious thing now is to go straight to the Dante, I’d have thought, and then take it from there. He’s only going to keep getting better as he’s still a big shell of a horse – he is very exciting for the long term.”
Doyle said: “Dear My Friend did well. It wasn't the plan to quite drop out that far, but we didn't begin all that well and got squashed from either side, so it was a bit of a plan B.
"We kind of dawdled early and then the John Ryan runner kind of tanked into the race and it just opened them up and we got racing quite early – from around four out. I got a nice draft into the race and, as we know, he has got form over further.”
Flight Plan’s trainer Karl Burke said: “He is a lovely horse and we have left a little bit to work on. He was 11 kilos heavier than when he won his maiden here and he’s having a nice healthy blow.
“I thought we had it won a furlong out. We can’t get a winner at the moment, that’s the frustrating thing, but hopefully that’s a sign of things to come. Whatever happened today, I knew we had a good horse on our hands. I think we will stick to plan A, which is to go for the Guineas – we will give it a go.”
Galeron’s jockey Kieran Shoemark said: “I am really happy. Our plan was to take our time, as he’s got a long year ahead. This was more of a stepping-stone and he will have come on for that big time fitness-wise, so very pleasing.”
