Finjaan, a three-year-old son of Royal Applause, returned to form in tremendous fashion on the opening day of Glorious Goodwood when bettering his older rivals to take the G2 Lennox Stakes.
Travelling smoothly under Tadhg O’Shea, Finjaan was switched wide inside the final two furlongs and ran on well to score by half a length from Balthazaar’s Gift (by Darley Japan stallion Xaar) with Regal Parade a further length back in third.
Trained by Marcus Tregoning, Finjaan won the G3 Molecomb Stakes at last year’s Glorious Goodwood before rounding off his juvenile season with a close-up third in the G1 Darley Dewhurst Stakes. He could now head to Newbury for the G3 Hungerford Stakes. Bred by Sheikh Hamdan’s Shadwell Stud, Finjaan is out of the winning Dayjur mare Alhufoof.
He becomes the seventh individual Black type winner this year for Royal Applause, who has also sired dual G2 winner Battle Of Hastings and Albany Stakes winner and Cherry Hinton second Habaayib.
Also at Goodwood on Tuesday, first-season sire Shamardal continued his purple patch when Lowdown led from pillar to post to take the six-furlong maiden and become his sire's seventh individual winner.
Lowdown’s trainer Mark Johnston, who trained Shamardal himself during his juvenile year, is clearly impressed by his former charge’s offspring. Speaking after the race he said, "Lowdown is from the first crop of Shamardal and we have about a dozen of them and they are lovely horses. Several will win races and three or four of them are really nice including Shakespearan, who is a cracking horse and will probably head to the Royal Lodge.”
