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A track record, a brave ride and a Slipper curse smashed – Guest House achieved a lot in a remarkable San Domenico Stakes win at Rosehill.

Few would have imagined the colt would settle third on the fence from barrier seven but that’s where Zac Lloyd landed him before squeezing through on the inside of Blue Door to lower the 1100m mark set back in 2007.

Using Blue Door, who set up the fast time, as a comparison from a Punter’s Intelligence sectional perspective we can add some more merit to Guest House’s win.

Obviously the filly was fastest out of the gates but Guest House ran slightly faster from the 1000m-800m, 0.01 slower from the 800m-600m and given he was held up until inside the 300m he’s run 0.23 faster than her from the 400m-200m before clocking an 11.36 last 200m.

That time was matched by Berzelius, following the fence, as the fastest of the race.

Guest House has run 33.14 for his last 600m and you wonder if he could have gone quicker with a clearer run, and not having to breathe in to take that inside run.

He’s clearly come back in great order and probably exceeded the stable’s expectations first-up.

Warwoven would be the hidden run of the race. Unlike Guest House, he went back from his wide gate and settled last and when they’re running track record time up front and sticking on it’s impossible to win.

He posted the race’s fastest last 600m of 32.88 running into fifth place and the drop off from his 10.63 from the 400m-200m to the 11.47 of his last 200m suggests he’ll benefit greatly from the run.

Several of the San Domenico combatants will meet again in the Run To The Rose over 1200m on September 12, joined by a few more big names no doubt, as they build up to the Golden Rose.

The other Group 3 feature for the three-year-olds, the Up And Coming Stakes (1300m), might be a little harder to read. While the time was sound enough it was nowhere near course record pace and the order didn’t change a whole lot from start to finish.

Plagiarism pounced on the lead and kept rolling, he only really took a breather from the 1000m-800m then increased the tempo steadily to establish a couple of lengths break at the 200m and that was enough to hold on.

Runner-up Genesis Runner ran the fastest last 200m of 11.39 and the second fastest last 600m of 33.46 in a nice performance, but there wasn’t a lot of difference in the sectionals with only 0.61 seconds between fastest and slowest.

Persian Wonder did pass a few to finish fifth running 33.42 for the fastest last 600m and perhaps the take away from the race is most of them ran quite well but the race shape suited those up close.

There were three 1500m races at Rosehill and Beside The Ocean had the misfortune of being in the slowest run of them.

The race was won by Transcend in 1:29.36, compare that to Mr Miller in the other Benchmark 78 division running 1:27.98 (nine lengths faster) and Althoff 1:27.89 in the Benchmark 100.

So Beside The Ocean had an impossible task from where she was but she’s reeled off the meeting’s fastest last 200m of 11.21 and a race best 33.53 last 600m to just miss third.

A win isn’t far away for her.

Both Mr Miller and Althoff put their hands up as potential light weight Epsom Handicap hopes and while taking nothing away from the former, Althoff was asked to do a lot more to win his race.

He found himself back last and has had to sustain race best sectionals over the last 1000m so it’s no surprise he’s run the fastest last 600m of his race in 33.90. He was only of only two horses, the other being Rolling Magic (11.93), to break 12 seconds for the last 200m.

Fastest last 600m: Harry Got Styles 32.60

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