Valiant Prince strolls home at Chelmsford – at odds of 1-40

PA Sport Reporters
September 2, 2021 7:15 pm

Easy pickings for Appleby-trained gelding.

Valiant Prince had the statisticians scouring the record books at Chelmsford on Thursday evening with a facile victory at staggering odds of 1-40.

Trained by Charlie Appleby, the James Doyle-ridden son of Dubawi was having his fourth racecourse outing in the tote.co.uk Live Streaming Every UK Race Novice Stakes over a mile.

He had previously been second twice this season, after finishing sixth on his one juvenile start in April last year.

Gelded since his latest run at Kempton, he gave Doyle had an armchair rider and cruised home by nine lengths from Arrange.

Doyle told Racing TV: “He was nice and straightforward, he’s been a little frustrating – we thought he was a little bit better than his mark, he’s probably bumped into one or two nice horses along the way.

“Charlie found him a nice opportunity today, he popped out of the gate and just enjoyed himself really. I filled him up on the bend and I just wanted him to use himself in the straight. It was just another experience for him really.

“I think William (Buick) and the guys who have ridden him at home certainly felt he was holding a small bit back for himself. I guess when you get a rating of 92 they can progress into nice horses, but they have to be going the right way and we just felt gelding him would see him find that improvement.

“We thought he might struggle to do that being an entire.”

The win made it an across-the-card treble for Appleby on the day, after wins for New Kingdom and Al Suhail at Haydock.

With his team nicely in form, Appleby can look forward to a big few weeks – starting with Creative Force in the Betfair Sprint Cup this weekend, on the same card that exciting juvenile Hatif reappears.

And on Saturday week the Moulton Paddocks handler is due to field red-hot favourite Hurricane Lane in the Cazoo St Leger at Doncaster.