A delight of the past week has been to see Grand Traverse, AKA Trev, in career best form.
Known fondly has Trev within the walls of Saxon Gate, at times Grand Traverse has presented a thorough test of trainer Archie Watson’s skills but the skill and patience of Archie and his team have been seen to great effort of late, with Grand Traverse registering two wins and a career best effort yesterday when runner-up at Kempton.
The five-year-old son of Siyouni joined us for 38,000gns from the horses in training sales after our buying team spotted some potential within his three runs for Andre Fabre and has now graduated to be our latest horse to earn a Timeform rating of 100 or more.
This season a taking win at Doncaster was built on at Kempton last week, where Grand Traverse and Luke Morris scored in decisive style over seven furlongs.
Returned to the same course and distance on Tuesday afternoon under a fixed five-pound penalty, Grand Traverse highlighted the strong form he is in by running the well backed Godolphin favourite, Dubai Beach, close, as he recorded his best effort yet in the Hambleton silks.
Taking his racing well and now improving his form level, Trev is building a compelling profile to run well in the many good handicap races held on the all-weather through the winter.
Never one to rest on his laurels, Archie has already identified where the five-year-old will next be in action, with a £75,000 seven-furlong handicap at Newcastle on his agenda in the second half of September.
Already a winner at Newcastle, where the nature of the races plays very much to his strengths, Grand Traverse can hopefully continue to give his horse racing syndicate loads of fun in the months ahead, starting with the first of the valuable handicaps he’ll be contesting at Newcastle.
