Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards Challenge Stakes
Group 2, Newmarket 15:00 £120,000 guaranteed, 3yo plus, 7f, Class 1
Tweet Friday 7th October 2022

1 Pogo 7/4
2 Sacred 13/8F
3 Misty Grey 20/1
8 ran Distances: 1¼l, ¾l, ¾l
Time: 1m 23.83s (slow by 0.93s)

Pogo leads all the way to win the Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards Challenge Stakes under William Buick for @cbhills @NewmarketRace pic.twitter.com/j4GJD9aNmi https://t.co/uCkbTBgm2o via @RacingBetter

— RacingBetter (@RacingBetter) October 7, 2022

Pogo, ridden by soon-to-be-crowned champion jockey William Buick, was winning for the eighth time.

Better than ever, the Charlie Hills-trained six-year-old had already won two Group Threes and chased home impressive Prix de la Foret winner Kinross in the City of York Stakes last time out.

Allowed to bowl along in front, he had Misty Grey for company before the race developed in earnest.

Tom Marquand decided to drop Sacred out in the rear and when she began to make her move going into the dip, it looked likely to be decisive.

Sacred began to drift right on the meeting the rising ground, though, and with the rail to help, Pogo ran out a comfortable length-and-a-quarter winner.

Hills said: “He’s such a star of a horse, he really is. He’s been to most battles this year and has very rarely come up short.

“Everything looked good today – he had a nice draw on the rail. The plan was to make the running and it worked out well.

“He’s a really tough boy. If every horse was like him it would be very easy.

“He has a great cruising speed and he’s aggressive. Even as a yearling he was quite hard to break in – he spent most of his time on two legs! He’s always liked plenty of graft and loves racing.”

He added: “I think we’ll look towards America and the Breeders’ Cup. He’s got good gate speed. We ran him in Saudi Arabia in the sprint and he made the running there, which takes some doing against sprinters.”

Challenge Stakes (Group 2)
£120,000 guaranteed, 3yo plus, 7f, Class 1
8 ran
Going: Good