Wetherby romp notices Danielle walk into Oaks' photo

Danielle, owned by John and Thady Gosden, looked like a strong candidate for the Oaks after her dominant first victory at Wetherby.

Rab Havlin was happy to hold the 4-7 favourite early in the Burrows Mazda York Fillies Novice Stakes over 10 furlongs, behind Winter Life and Cabrera.

At the three-furlong pole, Cracksman's daughter easily approached the other two and proceeded to score by 12 lengths.

Given that Courage Mon Ami, the Ascot Gold Cup winner, is half-sister to this filly, owners Anthony Oppenheimer and company will be optimistic that the filly can reach the Epsom mile and a half.

Danielle's only juvenile start came at Southwell, where she finished third behind 2000 Guineas contender Night Raider. When she returned to action earlier this month at Chelmsford, she was just beaten by the race-fit Winter Snowfall, but this was a significant improvement, and Sky Bet cut her odds to as low as 20-1 for the Oaks.

Havlin told Racing TV: “She ran just over two weeks ago and she’s come on plenty since then. We thought she’d be a decent filly on turf and we were pretty sure she would handle the (soft) ground, as she’s got quite a wide gait on her, as a lot of those Cracksmans have. She was still quickening up going through the line, so I was very impressed.”

He added: “She handles soft ground very well, I’m not saying she needs soft ground, but she handles it very well. She got run down by a filly that had had a run previously (at Chelmsford), so it was a good start-off point, she had a good blow after the race. She’s improved but she was always going to be a filly that improved markedly when she got on turf. So, I think we’ll be looking at mile-and-a-half races now and I’ll leave it to the boss to see whether he wants to run her in a trial and where it will be.”