Doncaster: Calendar Girl could be booked for bigger things after taking success for Saffie Osborne and Owen Burrows
Having won a similarly valuable event at York, Clive Cox's Song Of The Clyde set out to make all into a strong headwind under Rossa Ryan, but looked a bit of a sitting duck a furlong out; Saffie Osborne timed her run to perfection on Owen Burrows' filly to take the prize
Thursday 11 September 2025 15:34, UK
Saffie Osborne timed her run to perfection on Calendar Girl to deny Song Of The Clyde a big double in the Weatherbys Scientific £300,000 2-Y-O Stakes at Doncaster.
Having won a similarly valuable event at York, Clive Cox's Song Of The Clyde set out to make all into a strong headwind under Rossa Ryan, but looked a bit of a sitting duck a furlong out.
Christophe Soumillon came looming up on Aidan O'Brien's Brussels and it looked a matter of him just pushing the button. However, when push came to shove he found disappointingly little and it was Poatan who appeared the biggest danger, only for Song Of The Clyde to see him off too.
The leader had nothing left inside the final 50 yards when Osborne came flying on the Owen Burrows-trained Calendar Girl though, and she won by half a length at 7/2.
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Burrows said: "It's great she's won a race like this as the prize money is great and it has been the plan for quite a while now, but I think she's pretty smart, so we wouldn't just be trying to nail all these sales races.
"She's a big girl and she's only going to improve again next year. We'll have a chat to the team (Kennet Valley Syndicates, owners) and see what's what, but I'm thinking more of next year to be honest, and I think she'll be a miler next year.
"Fair play to poor old Jim (Crowley, injured), when he won her at Newbury on her first run he said she was stakes class and he might not be too far wrong."
Half Sovereign continues to look money well spent
Half Sovereign will have her sights raised after making it four wins on the spin in the British Stallion Studs 'Carrie Red' EBF Fillies' Nursery Handicap at Doncaster.
Karl Burke's juvenile has not looked back since finishing fourth on her Redcar debut in June, registering victories at Ayr, Yarmouth and Newmarket ahead of her latest test on Town Moor.
A cheap yearling purchase at 12,000 guineas, the daughter of Ten Sovereigns was the 9/4 favourite to get punters off to a flyer in the opening race of the four-day St Leger Festival and having forced the pace from the off, she passed the post with a length and a quarter in hand under Clifford Lee.
Burke said: "They went a married man's gallop early on and Cliff is very good from the front, so I would rather he was out there in the headwind than pulling her around looking for a lead.
"The plan was to come here and maybe go for the valuable Tattersalls sales race [at Newmarket], and then there's a nice fillies' Listed race in France at the end of October.
"Someone asked me how she stacks up against some of the other juvenile fillies we have and because she only cost 12,000 guineas as a yearling you're sort of negative in your thoughts of her early on, but she's done nothing but improve with every run, so who knows where she'll end up?"
