Cheltenham outing on Pam Sly’s radar for Eileendover

Dual winner could run on January 1.

Pam Sly’s dual winner Eileendover could take on the boys in a Listed bumper at Cheltenham on New Year’s Day.

The Canford Cliffs filly is a granddaughter of the trainer’s Classic heroine Speciosa, who claimed the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket in 2006.

Eileendover carried the same colours of Sly and her son Michael to a 29-length victory on her racecourse debut at Huntingdon last month – and proved there was no fluke about that surprise success when following up with a 16-length demolition job at Wetherby on Saturday.

Sly said: “She’s quite nice. I’m going to try to find some black type for her, and I suppose the first race that comes up is the four-year-old bumper at Cheltenham on New Year’s Day.

“That gives me nearly four weeks, which is just about ideal really. She’ll be taking on the geldings, but she’ll get an allowance.

“I’m not going to run her over hurdles – I’ll probably run her on the Flat next year. If she’s capable of winning bumpers like she is doing, you’d like to think she could win on the Flat.”

Eileendover is out of Specialty, who was Speciosa’s first filly foal and won a couple of minor Flat handicaps for Sly in 2014.

“We said we’d keep Speciosa to breed from after she was retired from racing, but while her fillies have all been OK, the boys have not been so good,” the trainer added.

“We’ve had a lot of people wanting to buy this filly since Wetherby, but she belongs to my son and myself and he says she’s not for sale.

Speciosa (right) on her way to winning the 1000 Guineas
Speciosa (right) on her way to winning the 1000 Guineas (Chris Radburn/PA)

“It’s taken us 14 years to get this far and horses like this don’t come along too often.”

Of Speciosa, Sly said: “She’s fine and had a filly by Cracksman this last time. She takes after her mother a bit – she’s a bit feisty!

“We actually decided against putting her in foal this year. She is 17 now and I don’t know if we’ll cover her again or not.”

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Pam Sly Speciosa Eileendover

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