Timeform’s Simon Baker reacts to the Group 1 bet365 Fillies’ Mile at Newmarket as he puts Precise’s win into recent historical context.

Aidan O’Brien tightened his stranglehold on the division by winning a third Group 1 for two-year-old fillies inside two weeks, and Precise’s win in the Fillies’ Mile looks a superior effort to those that saw True Love win the Cheveley Park and Diamond Necklace the Marcel Boussac. There’re only a few pounds in it either way, though, and with big-priced runners completing the placings, it’s hard to rate this as a vintage Fillies’ Mile, allowing that Precise won it with her ears pricked, looking value for at least another length. Even factoring that in, her performance falls a little short of those achieved by other wide-margin Fillies’ Mile winners of recent years, such as the 2024 winner Desert Flower and Precise’s illustrious Ballydoyle predecessor Minding.

Those two fillies were both short-priced winners of the 1000 Guineas the following spring, but ante-post prices between 5/2 and 6/1 about Precise support the form-based assessment that she isn’t so far ahead of her contemporaries, with the principal opposition coming from within her own formidable stable. Indeed, the unbeaten Marcel Boussac winner Diamond Necklace might just trump Precise for potential, with three races under her belt to Precise’s five and a pedigree – she’s a St Marks Basilica half-sister to an Irish Oaks winner, while Precise is by the sprinter Starspangledbanner, albeit out of a Galileo mare – that more obviously lends itself to middle distances. Either way, it’ll be fascinating to see how the Ballydoyle pecking order shakes out in the early stages of next season.

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