Aswan survived a rough race to take the Goodwood Racecourse Patrons Nursery Handicap over seven furlongs for Simon & Ed Crisford.
In a typically competitive contest for two-year-olds, there were plenty of hard-luck stories, but the James Doyle-ridden Aswan proved best on the day to score at odds of 13/2.
In what was a thrilling finish, Aswan had half a length to spare over the closing Blue Collar Lad (66/1), with Bastogne (50/1) a short head back in third.
Simon Crisford said: “James Doyle had no idea what pressure he was under. These colours, I used to come here in the late 1970s and these silks were carried by some great horses like Jellaby and champion sprinter Ahonoora. Some of the great names in the history of horseracing wore these famous racing silks.
“Sheikh Duaij [Al Khalifa, owner] was allowed by his uncle to take on the colours and here we are back at Goodwood in the footprints of those great horses from the 1970s. It is history, it is legacy. Sheikh Duaij will be so excited watching back in Bahrain. It means a huge amount.
“I didn’t know whether the handicapper had been mean to Aswan. I thought we were 1lb wrong. I thought he had an each-way chance but wasn’t sure if he would win.
“Aswan came from the Doncaster Sales and I’m very happy with him. He wants to get his toe in the ground a little bit, but he will go on any ground as long as it is not extremes.”
Doyle said: “We had a bit of a wide draw [9] to contend with, but we thought this fella would go through the line well like he did at Epsom where he was unlucky to get picked off late on. They got racing a long way out that day and he got headed and didn’t really get the chance to get balanced up, but he was only just touched off.
“Today, we were happy to be fairly positive from our draw. The pace of some of the big field races has been fairly steady – I don’t know whether the guys are just mindful of the ground being on the dead side but usually we would rattle along at better fractions.
“Aswan has done nothing wrong, he’s steadily progressive and Simon and Ed are really starting to hit their straps now, which is great. He’s learning all the time, but he had to be fairly brave late on and he was.”