Michael Bell believes Spicy Marg can put a below-par performance in the Queen Mary behind her when she takes her chance in the Duchess of Cambridge Stakes on day two of the July Festival at Newmarket tomorrow.<\/p>\n
The daughter of Starspangledbanner won impressively on HQ\u2019s Rowley Mile track on debut, galloping home by two and three-quarter length, and hopes were high ahead of her step up to Group 2 level at Royal Ascot.<\/p>\n
However, Bell, who trains out of Fitzroy House Stables, believes that her chances were hindered by being in season and is confident a different horse will be on show on the July Course.<\/p>\n
Spicy Marg will be in action at the July Festival. Picture: Mark Westley<\/p>\n
Asked if she can bounce back, Bell said: \u201cVery much so. She\u2019s trained well since Ascot where there were a couple of mitigating circumstances, so hopefully she can show what she\u2019s capable of on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe came back in season. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s anything definitive or if there\u2019s any records of if horses do or don\u2019t under-perform in season, but I think most horses seem to in my experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe carried her tail very high immediately after the race, so I\u2019m hoping that is the reason because we still believe she\u2019s a very nice filly.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Fifth-placed) Staya\u2019s subsequent win is a positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur filly was stuck on the wing and hit the front too early. A lot of things went against us.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re hoping for a kind draw in the middle of the field, get a lead and then it\u2019s up to her to show what we think she\u2019s capable of. She likes playing at home you could say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bell previously won the Duchess of Cambridge Stakes with the Gredley family-owned Pretty Pollyanna in 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Bell believes Spicy Marg can put a below-par performance in the Queen Mary behind her when she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[288,97251,1071,79,88176,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-252564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-horse-racing","9":"tag-newmarket-sport","10":"tag-racing","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-suffolk-sport","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114827066383066316","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}