Speciosa - The Dream Fulfilled

Speciosa added a major chapter to her fairytale story by storming to a hugely popular success in the Stan James 1000 Guineas.

The Danehill Dancer filly made all in thrilling style to scorch to a two-and-a-half length victory in the fillies´ Classic.

The victory was rightly greeted as a blow for ´the little man/woman´ with trainer Thorney-based Pam Sly having a string of barely 20 horses - and yet bringing down racing´s big guns on the grandest of stages.

Sly said: 'She´s fantastic, isn´t she! I´m just over-awed. It´s amazing. I´d hoped she´d be in the first four...it´s wonderful.

'It´s fantastic for racing. It just shows that a small little band of people like us - my girls, the jockey, everybody - it´s good for them.

'She spread a plate before she came this morning, so there were frantic phone calls. So we got it plated at 9.15am.

'We´ll have to discuss what we´ll do next. She is not in the Oaks. The Irish Guineas? I don´t think she´d handle the Curragh because of her left-handed tendency.

'I just don´t know where we are going to go from here. I think she´ll get a mile-and-a-quarter. Whether she´d get a mile-and-a-half, I don´t know.

'We had a good draw in three. I´m not religious but somebody must have been with me.'

Last autumn Speciosa won the Owen Brown Rockfel Stakes at Newmarket and a couple of lucrative offers were on the table, including one for 1.1 million dollars. But connections refused as they wanted to live the dream and head for the top races.

Sly added: 'It has been well documented that we didn´t want to sell - and we won´t, not just yet.'

One of her co-owners and son of Pam Sly, Michael Sly said: 'I just don´t know when I´m going to wake up. I read fairytales to my daughter and this is magic, pure magic. Sheer fun. To anybody out there, you can live the dream.'

Michael Fenton said: 'Going into The Dip, I was surprised - I just didn´t feel like I was in danger of getting beat.

'The plan was to race handy - that´s what she does. You don´t want to argue with her, she just likes to get on with it. She went through the ground, easy.

'She´s a very good mare to sit on. You´ve got a few gears under you.'