Precise made no mistake in securing a hugely impressive victory in the bet365 Fillies’ Mile at Newmarket.
Aidan O’Brien’s Moyglare Stud Stakes winner was the 5-4 favorite under Christophe Soumillon and remained behind as the field moved forward to look for her more successful stablemates, Composing and Sugar Island.
Having found refuge with them, she had to fight her way into the race and her abilities showed as she did so without issue. Hitting in front on the final furlong, she continued to an easy three and a quarter length victory over Venetian Lace 40-1, trained by Charlie Johnston.
O’Brien said: “She looks very special and everything she has done since day one has been so easy, so we never knew how good she was.
“She looks serious and it reminded me of Minding, she was impressive, incredible really. She was galloping to post and that’s unusual.
“She does everything so easily. Christophe said he stayed in front a lot longer than he would have liked, but he was brilliant with her, super confident and very gentle with her, so she’s very exciting.
“She’s a totally natural athlete, so we never do too much at home with her, but these races like this and the Boussac, we love seeing them there, so we know what we have for next year and we have no illusions until next year.
“We always hoped she would be a classic filly but here at Newmarket there’s nowhere to hide, she came out really fast and what you like about her is she sailed to the pole two furlongs and at that point you thought she was going to win – by the time she got to the seven it was over.
“I would say we’ll put her aside, she looks like she could be anything and we’ll train her for the Classics. There are no limits for her.”
On how Precise compares to ParisLongchamp winner Diamond Necklace, O’Brien added: “I think they could both go beyond a mile and the filly in France looked very special, Christophe never touched her and went to France feeling like she was unbeatable.
“He treated it as a day out to give him more experience before next year. He said he would do it after Leopardstown and rode him the same way in a Group One.”
Johnston said of runner-up Venetian Lace: “I was briefly excited. I thought we had been pretty tough at the start, so I knew it would be difficult to maintain those fractions, but one by one they were under pressure and she still had more to give.
“Fair play to the winner, she’s clearly a very good filly but I’m delighted with ours.
“We came straight into the Chesham from her young daughter and she’s been part of the group ever since. Sometimes you look out when you’re an outsider and you’re like ‘why am I showing up?’ but I never had that feeling with her, I always trusted that she belonged in these races.
“She’s only disappointed once at Doncaster and I’m struggling with the ground on that track.
“I thought we would be top four but I’m not surprised to see her finish second.
“That’ll be it for the year now I think. Looking at her pedigree I always thought the Oaks for her but she’s not slow and after that I think we’ll be back here in May.”
