3 minute read
Features in Melbourne and Sydney over the past week see the two-year-old group starting to take shape but a couple of performances in more modest surroundings look every bit as exciting.
On Australia Day we saw the start of the Blue Diamond series with the Previews; the colt's division taken out by the solid Cohesion (rated 106) and the fillies by the slightly more spectacular Sword Of Light (108p).
Sword Of Light ran 0.18 seconds quicker overall on the back of a 0.75 second quicker last 600m and looks the better prospect going forward - hence the 'p'.
Miracles Of Life is the only filly to come through the Preview to win the Blue Diamond in recent history, and she was rated 113+ after winning the 2013 Preview, so Sword Of Light has work to do if she's going to land the big prize, but it's worth noting that Crystal Lily won the Golden Slipper for the same connections in 2010 after being rated 110p after winning the Preview.
Of those beaten in the two heats the most interesting might be Dream First who is rated 100p after her debut and closed her race off like a filly who will have a lot more to offer when she next steps out.
The Canonbury and The Widden play a similar role to the Previews up in Sydney and there we again saw the fillies division return a quicker overall time than the colts.
However, this time the colts were home from the 600m approximately 5.5 lengths quicker, and the winner Tessera was the star of the show, returning a rating of 109.
After leading Tessara was headed by debutante Defcon, who had sprinted up from the tail of the field, but was able to rally back and a 1.5 length margin on the line was only widening in favour of the winner.
That said, the race wasn't run at a break-neck speed early and the runner up had to make a big surge to get ahead at all. He'll come on for that and a rating of 101 on debut is very promising.
The fillies heat was higher-pressure early and given that the form looks fairly true, Honesty Prevails a clear-cut winner on the day and full value for her 105 rating.
She will have to improve if she is going to win bigger prizes this autumn, particularly with fillies like Global Glamour set to chime into feature-race fold in the coming weeks.
Global Glamour was given a much softer test for her debut, sent down the highway to contest a maiden at Kembla Grange, but she impressed every bit as much as those under the spotlight at Rosehill.
In fact, her 6.3 length romp rated a pound higher than the Widden Stakes winner with a rating of 106+.
Heavy going means this rating is posted with a fair degree of caution but the win stands up to examination. It was smart and she looks up to much better things - the plus an indication that the performance could well prove better than it's current rating.
The win isn't without precedent either. Last year's Riesling Stakes winner English won the same race en route to that Group 2 success and all of Exosphere, Decision Time, Jymcarew and Catkins have launched their careers with triple-figure performances at Kembla in the January of their two-year-old season this century.
At Moonee Valley on Friday night we saw another promising debut with a bit of precedent behind it.
Zamzam made folly of her 12-1 starting price by rounding up the much more fancied Gridelin and returning a rating of 99p.
The win came in the same nondescript fillies race that stablemate Gregers won on debut back in 2013.
Gregers was rated 95p after her debut and went on to run fourth in the Blue Diamond.
Like Gregers, Zamzam will have to take a big step forward off her debut if she is going to ruffle feathers in a Blue Diamond but she certainly looks to have scope to improve on her Valley win where her inexperience was fairly evident.
Check out Timeform's current two-year-old leaderboard here