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LE DON DE VIE looks to possess all the requisite tools to win the bet365 Cambridgeshire at Newmarket.
Valuable Flat handicaps are more competitive than ever but the same old principles apply – find a rapidly-improving horse that can cope with a strong gallop, and ideally stay a bit further, and you’re definitely on the right track.
Overlooking the eyebrow-raising summer stable switch from Andrew Balding to Hughie Morrison for the time being, the three-year-old Le Don De Vie has a profile to die for when it comes to aiming at a huge, end-of-season handicap like the Cambridgeshire.
He ran three times in three very warm races at two – the Goodwood maiden in which he finished fifth to Line Of Duty has produced 16 subsequent winners – and this year has seen him win three of his four starts.
Balding plotted a path he knows well in winning an Epsom novice event at the end of April en route to the big, 10-furlong handicap back there on Derby day. And, after the plan came to fruition with a four-and-a-half length victory over The Trader, the owners cashed in to the tune of £460,000 at the Goffs horses-in-training sale.
So the LDDV baton was passed to Morrison, who got him back in action quite quickly in his new silks and opted to switch up in distance to test the water over a mile and a half at Glorious Goodwood.
He ran a belter, racing prominently, leading two furlongs from the finish and finishing fourth to Sir Ron Priestley, who has won at Group Three level since.
Le Don De Vie is a first foal and his dam Leaderene, a half-sister to Group One winner Lady Marian, stayed 12 furlongs well, so it was well worth a try but on reflection the Goodwood run was a fact-finding mission with a pretty clear conclusion: he doesn’t want that far.
The best part of a month off followed but progress was resumed stylishly back at Goodwood – back over a mile and a quarter – with victory on Sunday afternoon.
He was extremely well backed before the race, going off 2/1 favourite having been 9/2 earlier in the day, Oisin Murphy rode him with a real air of confidence and the eventual half-length winning margin looked to significantly underrate his overall superiority over Great Example, who was an eased-down winner at Nottingham on his previous start.