On Saturday, Mustazeed landed his first start, both of the season and, indeed, for new trainer, Harry Eustace.
Mustazeed entered the parade ring, on a busy day at Newbury that staged the Greenham Stakes earlier on the card, looking in fabulous condition for his birthday, yes it really was his actual 5th birthday yesterday – and he celebrated in style…
He broke well from the stalls and in sitting two thirds of the way back in the field, Kieran Shoemark gave Mustazeed a cracking, patient ride and didn’t really make any effort to get any closer, allowing our 5yo to settle into a beautiful rhythm but started to make ground almost without having to ask him up the first half of the straight. Kieran, eventually pulled him out and made up two or three lengths very quickly before again sitting and travelling upsides the eventual third, and then, when Kieran asked Mustazeed to kick and chase the leader, the 5yo lengthened impressively, catching the leader with a hundred yards to go and winning nicely by three quarters of a length.
On meeting Kieran coming back in on the horse walk, his immediate reaction was “ well, that was fun!!”. He was very pleased with the horse as were all his owners and there were joyous scenes in the winners enclosure as he made his way back in. In fact, if you watch the footage below closely, you can see two of our Owners celebrating as Mustazeed crossed the finish line – capturing the sheer joy and excitement of our sport…
Huge congratulations to Mustazeed’s owners, and very well done to Harry Eustace and team!
The best part is, this is just the very start of the season for Mustazeed… there’s plenty more to come!