Unforgotten has unleased an electric turn of foot to easily beat a talented field to the line in the Group 2 Chelmsford Stakes (1600m) at Royal Randwick this afternoon.
A firm favourite in betting all week, jockey Hugh Bowman settled the mare off the early pace set by Religify, Classic Uniform and Prized Icon, who all flew the barriers and set a reasonable tempo for the capacity field from the outset.
It looked like being a luckless day at the office for the mare when she was completely blocked for a run rounding into the straight, but she finally found clear running with 200m to travel and made it count with a truly scintillating late spring.
Hugh Bowman was on board Unforgotten again this afternoon and believes that she’ll only improve from the run.
“I had the horse to take me places,” Bowman said.
“She’s pretty smart and she put the writing on the wall when she won the ATC Oaks here in autumn.
“The world is her oyster. I can’t image she’d be beating Winx any time soon but there’s plenty of nice races for her. She just looks fantastic and it’s magnificent to be back on her.”
Chris Waller was pleased with Unforgotten’s performance and win in the Chelmsford Stakes
“She’s very special and she showed that in the autumn with her win in the Oaks, which was pretty special,” he said.
“Today I guess you could put right up there. She needs a bit of luck and to have acceleration that she’s got over a mile, it shows she’s not just a 2400m horse.
“We’ll run with it (targeting the Caulfield Cup) today and we’ll see when reality sets in where she fits in with the others. Where she is in weights and things like that.
“There’s so many options in the spring and to be quite frank, I would have been running her in the Epsom and going to the Cox Plate with her, had it not been for Winx.”