July Stakes the target for excellent Encountered as Botti bounces back to form

Marco Botti made the trip to an overcast South Yorkshire worthwhile as the impressive Encountered got off the mark in style in the 7f novice.

The Newmarket trainer’s only runner on the card demonstrated significant improvement from his third on debut at Haydock to pull clear of Implore by four lengths under Daniel Muscutt.

Botti said: "We were hoping to see what he did today because we like him a lot. The lads at home all love him.

"He is a nice horse, a strong professional with a great temperament and he ticks all the boxes you would expect from a good horse."

However, any future plans for the promising two-year-old are dependent on the wishes of owner Ben Wong.

"Mr Wong tends to take his horses to Hong Kong. Hopefully I will be able to keep him here and my plan would be for him to go to the July Stakes or the Superlative Stakes," Botti said.

"I really hope we can keep him because I think he could have a bright future."

It has been a good couple of days for Botti ,who has now saddled three winners from as many starts after a double at Newcastle on Thursday.

He added: "It has been a little bit frustrating for the last few weeks as we went through a really quiet spell.

"We didn’t have the results we wanted to so it’s good to get the nice horses out to give us a bit more confidence going forward."

Giogiobbo wins again

The Scott Dixon-trained Giogiobbo followed up a 33-1 success over course and distance earlier this month with a narrow victory in the 6f handicap.

The well-travelled eight-year-old made it two in a row on turf under apprentice Kieran Schofield after 12 successive runs on the all-weather without a win.

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