Maltese Cross boosts Sea The Stars with Newbury novice win

Maltese Cross did more than land a Newbury novice. He gave Sea The Stars a second high-profile winner on the same card, and he did it in a race that has already started to look like a proper Derby stepping-stone, not just another spring novice.

The 3-year-old colt, a 1 April 2023 foal, won the Darley EBF Novice Stakes over 1m2f on good ground by a neck in 2m 6.05s, with Tom Marquand doing the steering for William Haggas. Sent off 7-4 favourite, he had to work for it in a blanket finish, but he found enough to get the job done and collect the £20,616 winner’s prize. This was only his third career start, and it came after a Newmarket win on 25 September 2025, so the profile is still moving in the right direction rather than flattening out.

That is the part that makes the performance matter. Maltese Cross was visually neat, yes, but the more important takeaway is that he handled a test. He had to dig through pressure, keep his rhythm in a tight finish, and still show the stamina and composure expected of a horse with bigger targets ahead. Plenty of well-bred 3-year-olds can look the part at home or win by daylight in weak races. Fewer can turn up in a Class 2 at 1m2f, control the last part of a race like this, and still leave the impression that there is more to come.

The timing also sharpened the story. Minutes after I'm The One announced himself at Newbury, Sea The Stars had another son making noise on the same card, turning the afternoon into a quickfire double for the sire. That matters in a market that still judges stallions as much by momentum as by numbers. Two winners in one afternoon is the sort of strike rate that puts a name back in breeders’ conversations, and Sea The Stars suddenly looked very alive at Newbury.

There is proper context behind the race, too. The Newbury novice has a habit of finding horses with class, with Military Order and Gethin among the recent winners and two of the first three renewals already producing black-type performers. Maltese Cross now sits in that lane, with entries already in place for the Dante Stakes at York on 14 May and the Derby at Epsom on 6 June. With Sea The Stars supplying both him and I'm The One on the day, Newbury felt less like a coincidence and more like a warning shot.