Wild Dahlia lands odds-on victory for William Haggas

Wild Dahlia produced a tremendous turn of foot to land her first victory yesterday at Chelmsford on only her third racecourse appearance.

Our two-year-old Ardad filly was bought from the breeze-ups at Doncaster in April and made her debut in a hot maiden at Newmarket in August, producing a very encouraging effort to finish third. Her next start came at Chester, where she broke slowly from the stalls and, at a track that favours being handy and in a good position, she was unable to get involved at the finish. She did stay on well on that occasion from well back, however, so it was still a decent performance in the circumstances. The winner broke the two-year-old track record, so it was a quality race.

We were very hopeful when she was declared to run at Chelmsford that she would break from the stalls on terms and land her first victory. She didn’t tick both of those boxes, as again she was slowly away; her jockey Cieren Fallon was forced to sit at the back of the field off a very slow pace. Thankfully, once she found daylight in the short straight, she was able to pick up with an impressive turn of foot and got up in the dying strides. It was one of those occasions where, mid-race, you think the writing is on the wall, so to defy all of that to win was very promising indeed.

She looks an exciting filly for the future and we can’t wait to see where she heads next.