Kalane

21st-Mar-2015

This is a race that is usually dominated by those mares who are towards the lower end of the handicap (the last five winners carried 10st 12lb or less) … There is a big chance that Kalane will be significantly better than the mark of 120 which she has been allocated for this, her handicap debut.

On her debut this season, just her second run over hurdles, she beat Monbeg Theatre in a two-mile novices’ contest at Southwell, getting just the 7lb mares’ allowance. That horse won his next two races, and is now raced 130.

Kalane was given a break after that, and she returned to finish third in a good race at Exeter last month. She finished a fairly remote third, but the first and second, Native River and Emerging Talent, are classy novices. Native River ran in the Albert Bartlett Hurdle at Cheltenham, and Emerging Talent was upsides L’Ami Serge in the Kennel Gate Hurdle on his previous run when he fell at the second last flight. He had Martin Pipe Hurdle winner Killultagh Vic well behind him in third place at the time. Also, the fifth horse from the Exeter race, War Sound, came out and won well at Chepstow just before Cheltenham.

That should have set Kalane up nicely for today. She is stepping up in trip by five furlongs, but she is by Kalanisi out of a full-sister to Gold Cup winner Kicking King. She could improve again for the greater test of stamina. Her Southwell win was on good ground, so the ground is not a concern, and she has bags of scope for progression anyway as a thrice-raced young mare.

KALANE WON (SP 10/1)

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