Cast No Shadow has come out of the race perfectly well after his excellent run at Newcastle on Friday evening, and as frustrating as it was to be beaten by such a narrow margin, there were definitely more positives than negatives to take away from it.

He ran so well, and he’s proven to us that he’s definitely capable of winning one of those races over five furlongs. The way he’s strengthened up after each run suggests to me that he might just get faster, and I’ve always felt he had pace, he just couldn’t show it to best effect on his first couple of starts.

WATCH: Cast No Shadow flies home to finish 2nd at Newcastle | Raceday Highlights
We do of course qualify for a handicap mark now, so it will be fascinating to see what sort of mark he gets. I suspect they’ll keep him out of the 0-75 races, so going through the form lines for Monks Dream who beat us a short-head on Friday, I’d say we can expect a mark in the high 70’s, but it will be interesting to see what the handicapper makes of his form.

The plan is very much to geld him and give him a break, but I’d like to win a race with him this side of Christmas before we do that. The thought behind gelding him is that if we give him a break as a colt he’ll get very heavy through his neck and shoulder and put more strain on his front legs which is where he’s suffered with sore shins, so if we can keep a little bit of condition off him by gelding him, it will make his return to racing a bit more straightforward.

As I say, we’d like to win a race before that, and with nursery races over five furlongs in short supply at this time of year, I’d say its likely we’ll look for a similar maiden or novice race back at Newcastle during December. We’ll have a good look through the programme over the next couple of weeks and keep everybody updated with his plans.

Hugo Palmer, Coral Racing Club Trainer