Four for Young at Hove on Thursday night

Young takes four of the seven Hove opens

There was another bumper return for the Paul Young kennel as they ran riot at Hove on Thursday night. Bella Bullet returned to six bends where she had made the final of the Coral Regency earlier on in the year to great effect. She was slow away from an unfamiliar draw in four but she drove the opening bend strongly to put herself into a wining position coming off the second turn. 

Droopys Alldeway had been in great form of late despite not being able to get his head in front. The Arc Birmingham Cup finalist took advantage of the inside draw given to him to score for the first time since a heat of the Sussex Cup back in July. He has developed into a rock-solid, all-around performer, and this track regularly brings out the best in him.

There was a debut win for Sperrin Mist who was pitched straight into a winner of one. She is very closely related to Cork Oaks winner Bombay Special who will be in action at Dunstall Park tomorrow in the Oaks, and St Leger finalist Lets Go Girl. It was a smart debut, showing plenty of speed to lead up and having held her line at the opening bend on the inside, she skipped clear in impressive fashion.

The surprise for Young was the success of Bubbly Charger. He has always had a huge amount of natural ability but there were plenty of early-paced rivals for him to clear which looked tricky on paper. As it was, he smashed out and courtesy of a 3.45 split, was well in front heading into the opening bend to score at 16/1.

There was a double on the night for Patrick Browne, kicked off by Playit Cool Trig. He has hit a rich vein of form in recent starts, wining three and finishing runner-up in the other two of his last five. He has potent early boot which he used to great effect once more to quickly get himself into pole position. 

The second leg came courtesy of Gingers Ada who did things the other way, getting her head in front very late in the day. All of the early speed came from Young's Droopys Nanette, but the winner had tracked around close enough behind the pace to put herself into a position to pick things up late in the day and deny Young a five-timer. 

The other open on the card went to Derek Knight and Candolim Typhoon. His 41.63 success ranks the ninth quickest time of the year over 695m, with three of the eight ahead of him all coming from Droopys Flare in the three rounds of the Coral Regency. He is still relatively unexposed as a stayer and could still have better to come.

Flaherty and Heilbron take Newcastle opens

Just two opens at Newcastle where the ageless Naochra picked up another win for John Flaherty. He is a powerful runner over the 480m distance, with some of his best form being saved for him home track, including his Northern Flat victory in 2025. It was win number 19 in his career, picking up the front running Romeo Liberty around the closing bends. 

The other open went to Tom Heilbron's Romeo Astron who went a couple of spots quicker. He got into a good battle with his kennelmate Toddys Storm to the third bend, proving stronger from that point. The dual Category One runner-up is a class act, with five wins and five seconds from 13 runs for Heilbron.