Commissioning's half-sister Symbol Of Majesty makes spectacular debut at Chelmsford

Symbol Of Majesty has regal breeding living up to her name and came up with a performance to match on her debut at Chelmsford on Thursday.

The New Bay filly, trained by John and Thady Gosden, is a half-sister to the unbeaten 2022 Fillies' Mile winner Commissioning.

Like that Kingman filly, Symbol Of Majesty carries the colours of her owner-breeders, Shaikh Isa Salman and Shaikh Abdulla Al Khalifa. She was last of the field, and at least ten lengths adrift of the leaders, with three furlongs of the 1m fillies' novice to go.

Bit by bit, the 9-2 chance began to make progress but it was not until the final furlong that she found another gear under Rab Havlin, leading almost on the line and finishing three-quarters of a length ahead of Capichera and favourite Venetia, who both had runs under their belts.

Watch Symbol Of Majesty's victory here

"It was the first run of her life, you're either going to start slow or start quick and get caught on the outside," Havlin told Racing TV. "I galloped her last week, she showed she had a bit of class but she has a lot of weakness in her, so we decided to ride her a bit like a weak filly. We wanted to ride her to come home, and come home she did.

"We know that next spring she's going to be a different prospect to what she looks now. She's a bit of a frame still, she's only going to get stronger."

Havlin won the Rockfel and his first ever Group 1 in the Fillies' Mile on Commissioning, who never raced again after suffering a career-ending fetlock injury in the winter.

The pair's Fastnet Rock half-brother, Military Academy, landed the Listed Floodlit Stakes at Kempton last year. They are both bred out of the twice-raced Galileo mare Sovereign Parade, a sister of top-class stayers Capri and Tower Of London.

Asked about the similarity, Havlin said: "She's got a long way to go! Obviously [Commissioning] won at the July course first-time-out and we're here on a wet Thursday night at Chelmsford but the ground she made up from the bottom of the straight to the line and she took a bit of pulling up afterwards, so it was a really nice performance."

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