“If he repeats his trial sectional I expect him to lead and if he leads I expect him to win.” said Patrick Janssens yesterday.
He did and he did – though that doesn’t even begin to tell the story of a sensational display of early pace from Coolavanny Shado is Monday night’s PGR Eclipse first round heats.
The big black didn’t just lead, off an identical sectional, he destroyed the opposition to the third bend and then simply held them at bay for the remainder of the event clocking the fast time over course and distance in almost a year, 29.30.
Patrick also suggested kennelmate Slick Sakina would find a bundle of time on her second look of the circuit and she did precisely that – five lengths – clocking the second fastest time of the night, 29.53.
The question though is – how good a run was that?
We checked back through Mark Pierrepont’s ‘Derby halfways’ from the 2020 and 2019 English Derbys and then asked Mark to run the software on Coolavanny Shado’s win.
The result was stunning.
Coolavanny Shadow clocked 14.38 to the ‘halfway’ – an incredible time – though far from unbelieveable when you spot Derby semi finalist Signet Goofy so far back in his slipstream.
