Echo Of Stars impresses at Chepstow, targets Royal Ascot next

Echo Of Stars turned a routine Chepstow novice into a possible Royal Ascot springboard on Friday, landing the Bill Lewtons 80th Birthday Novice Stakes by two and a quarter lengths and banking £6,480 in the process. The three-year-old colt, owned by Mrs Fitri Hay, saw off Blue Hercules with El Nay in third over 1m2f on good to firm ground, a result that immediately lifted him from promising maiden territory toward more ambitious summer targets.

The manner of the win mattered as much as the margin. After being beaten over the same trip in the Greenshields JCB EBF Maiden Stakes at Newbury on 15 May, Echo Of Stars was ridden with more restraint and settled far better at Chepstow. He was already in command two furlongs from home and then pulled away, the kind of controlled, progressive effort that suggested both the race shape and the ride suited him far better than Newbury’s stop-start test. It was a cleaner performance, a more complete performance, and one that looked like a colt learning how to use his strength.

Oliver Cole admitted after the race that he had wondered whether Echo Of Stars might just be a miler, but the Chepstow run pushed the argument the other way. The colt had already shown useful form earlier in the season, finishing second in a Newmarket mile maiden on 4 October 2025 and fourth in an Ascot novice over 7f 213y on 6 September 2025. Add in the fact that he was not far behind Maltese Cross, William Haggas’s Derby horse, in an earlier piece of form, and the picture starts to look deeper than a standard novice winner. He is not simply quick enough to win a race like this. He is beginning to look like a horse who can settle, travel and finish, which is what opens doors later in the summer.

That is why Royal Ascot is now the obvious next checkpoint. The meeting runs from 16 June to 20 June, leaving Cole a little more than two weeks to work back from Chepstow and decide where Echo Of Stars fits. Foaled on 9 March 2023, the son of Sea The Stars out of Valais Girl by Holy Roman Emperor was bred by Sunderland Holdings Inc., and his profile now looks like that of a colt with something more than novice company ahead of him. Chepstow gave him the sort of launch that turns an ordinary afternoon into a serious summer plan.