Thoughts on Marmande at Kempton tomorrow

Marmande runs in the 6.30 at Kempton Park tomorrow (5th February). Richard Kingscote takes the ride in the seven furlong fillies maiden. Marmande was a bit more professional on her second start than her first. She ran well enough for a while before getting a hefty bump that saw her return from the race with a cut on a front leg. She got tired late in the race and having shown she could travel well enough the drop back to seven furlongs should be in her favour. With a bit more time she should get a mile without trouble. We are looking for her to run a better race again tomorrow and take another step forward in her development, she’s drawn nicely in stall one to be able to get involved and learn plenty.

The race looks fairly wide open, La Napoule and Ishiamber both showed enough to suggest they can win a race of this nature given the benefit of their early racecourse experiences. Windlass probably has a little bit to find with those two but ought to be close enough. There are some intriguing newcomers – particularly Joie De Reve who looked a real athlete at the breeze up sales last spring, however given this is her first appearance on the course one imagine things haven’t gone as smoothly since then for her. Labise and Khatiba a both nicely bred fillies who could be anything. This is the type of race that could be strong or weak for the grade, we’ll all know a lot more at this time tomorrow.