Prix du Premier Pas - Timur

This 2-year-old race has been that start of the Juvenile season for the last few seasons, but it has been moved back slightly this year and that certainly gave the track at Lyon Parilly a chance to dry out a little. A penetrometer reading of “Souple 3,6” would be close to Good to Soft in UK terms and with a field full of 2-year-old debutantes at the very earliest stage of their 2-year-old year, that can only be seen as a plus.

As 2-year-olds go, I would be very surprised if TIMUR proves to be a great deal better than this level, but he is significant given that he is the first winner for his Sire, Blackbeard. He cost €20,000 as a yearling at Arqana in 2024 and rewarded that investment with success in this €10,500 maiden. Having been supplemented for this race by Mathieu Pitart, it was slightly surprising to see him sent off at an SP of 10 on the PMU, but he found plenty for Emilien Puillet-Roda in the closing stages to win by a length and a quarter. He was certainly helped by having a decent early pace to track from the eventual 4th (Sacree Philomene) who ran opening furlong splits of 11.13 and 11.16s. He was far too green and wandered all over the track inside the final furlong, but he did helped to give Timur some cover and once asked to go an win his race, Timur finished well despite being slightly inexperienced once left in front. It is impossible to form a strong opinion about a debutantes race at this level and the fact that Timur was receiving weight from the filly in 2nd place courtesy of his riders claim needs to be accounted for. He doesn’t appear to be the biggest colt by any means and having clocked a top speed of 65.4 km/h, it wouldn’t be a shock if he were to be turned out quite quickly in a Class 2 contest next month. There will almost certainly be bigger and stronger 2-year-old colts in the maidens over the next month, but he showed plenty of speed and was a nice winner to get his precocious sire off the mark. His dam, Ninetta, was a winner over a mile at Carlisle and is a half-sister to the Listed winner Pouvoir Absolu, so there is some hope that he may stay further in time, but at this stage he would look to be a precocious 2-year-old like his Sire.

The runner-up, Belisa Bay, ran well on her debut and having split a pair of Colts and conceded weight to both of them, she may well find easier assignments than this in the weeks ahead. Although unable to repel the winner, I thought she traveled with some suggestion of quality and as a daughter of Bayside Boy out of a mare who won over a mile for Jonathan Portman in the UK, she would be entitled to improve over longer than this 900m trip. It’s far too early to be forming any strong opinions on the 2-year-old form, especially in the South of France, but this was a good start for the first pair to cross the line and both of them may be able to win again for their connections given how far forward they appear to be.