Style gives Cecil solid Oaks team

When Kevin Keegan arrived at the Knavesmire yesterday, he must have hoped to forget the misfortune which has dogged him in recent months, but the fates are in a particularly spiteful mood when it comes to the Newcastle manager. Not content simply with the elimination of Bride's Reprisal, owned by Keegan, from the first race as the result of a technical error, they then decreed that Magnificient Style would win the day's big race with a striking demonstration of just where the Magpies went wrong.

Like the football team, Henry Cecil's filly was quickly into her stride in the Musidora Stakes and had soon secured an impressive lead, but it was in her response to a challenge with the winning post in sight that the comparison broke down.

At various stages of the final three furlongs, all four of her opponents appeared ready to deliver a major threat, but Magnificient Style bravely repelled one after another to eventually run out the one-and-three-quarter length winner. Required viewing, perhaps, before big games at St James's Park next season.

The success gave Cecil his sixth Musidora in the last 11 years, and two of those winners, Diminuendo and Snow Bride, went on to win the Oaks, the latter admittedly thanks to Aliysa's disqualification. At present, however, Magnificient Style is simply the latest Classic trial winner who is not engaged in the main event itself, and it will be up to Mahmoud Fustok, her owner, whether she is added to the Oaks field at a cost of pounds 15,000.

If Fustok listens to her trainer, though, he may opt to keep his money in his pocket, and ante-post punters should do likewise until his decision is known. "She's still learning and she'll improve for this and I think over another two furlongs she'd have kicked away again," Cecil said. "Epsom's not the ideal course for her, but if we had a bit of give in the ground she'd get away with it. If it was very firm it might do her harm and we might have to revert to the Ribblesdale [at Royal Ascot] or Irish Oaks."

Epsom will doubtless be watered in the run-up to the Derby meeting, but a sound surface must still be the strong favourite. Cecil, meanwhile, has two other leading candidates for the Oaks in Lady Carla, a winner at Lingfield on Saturday, and Quota, who was the deeply impressive winner of a maiden at Sandown last month.

The bookmakers duly ran all the possibilities through their calculators after yesterday's race, and for once a slight difference of opinion emerged. Coral promoted Magnificient Style from 14-1 to 6-1 second-favourite for the Oaks behind the 11-8 chance Pricket, who soundly beat Cecil's filly at Newmarket on 1,000 Guineas day. William Hill, though, will lay 10-1, but even that is hardly realistic about a filly who is far from certain to run.

Mick Kinane, who rode the perfect front-running race on Magnificient Style, was completing a double, having taken the opening maiden on the promising debutante, Dance Parade. Kinane was deputising on Paul Cole's filly for Richard Quinn, who was otherwise engaged as a witness at a disciplinary hearing at Portman Square.

Cole was annoyed that Quinn, who was not himself on trial, had missed a winner as a result, and it is perplexing that the inquiry was scheduled for the opening day of a major meeting. Dance Parade may now contest the Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot, which should give Quinn a chance to retrieve yesterday's losses.

Kinane, meanwhile, did not emerge from yesterday's meeting entirely in credit. Following his head defeat on Humourless in the 10-furlong handicap, the Irish champion was called before the stewards to defend a charge of using his whip with excessive force. He failed to convince them, and was banned for two days, 23 and 24 May.