Kirsty Milczarek: Rode Rewarded

Rewarded landed the Listed 32Red Festival Stakes at Goodwood under a fine ride from Kirsty Milczarek.

A fascinating race lost some of its interest with the early morning withdrawal of Boom And Bust and then the notoriously tricky Afsare played up at the start and refused to enter the stalls.

In the absence of the 11/8 favourite, stablemate Mobaco took the field along and Jim Crowley had one or two of his rivals in trouble as the sprint for home began.

There were no such problems for Milczarek aboard James Toller’s gelding and the pair slipped through on the rails and showed a good turn of foot to go a couple of lengths up inside the distance.

That proved decisive as Ian Mongan belatedly persuaded Stipulate to quicken but the line came too soon for the four year old who came up short in his attempt to provide Sir Henry Cecil with an eighth success in this race.

Third home was Reckoning under substitute jockey Hayley Turner; the pair had been last with just over a furlong to run and badly outpaced only to fly home once the race was over.

Newmarket trainer Toller said: “It wasn’t a complete surprise, I hoped he’d run well and it proves that perhaps he is a better horse than some people had given him credit for.

“It wasn’t a bad first run back at Chester (sixth in Huxley Stakes), he didn’t get a lot of luck in running and I was happy coming here.

“Kirsty gets on very well with him, and it shows that if she gets the right horses, she’s just as good as anyone.

“I think we will have some fun with the horse. I’ll get the programme book out and imagine we’ll find a Group Three over the same sort of trip.”

Unfortunately for Milczarek, she was given a two-day ban (June 8-9) for using her whip in an incorrect place.