ILAYA 22 April 2014 Kapgarde-Tour Magic-Grey Mare. Owner-The Golden Cookoo
One of the most exiting horses in the yard is the six year old French bred mare Ilaya. Her sire is the top class producer of jump horses, Kapgarde who was trained by Guillaume Macaire and only ever raced at Autoise racecourse. Ilaya's dam is the unraced Tour Magic, but her dam Tourmaline achieved a racing post rating of 134, while also only ever racing at Autoise.
Ilaya arrived at the yard in the spring of 2018 having had one previous run when finishing a very respectable second at Pau in a three year old hurdle at the end of December 2017. She was soon showing above average ability on the Middleham gallops, so hopes were high for her British debut at Sedgefield in November of 2018 where she was sent off at only 8/1,but she threw the race away by racing far too freely, establishing a long lead, but weakening quickly.
Over the course of the next eleven months she would race another six times, and on each occasion pull her race away. At Newcastle in December after many a hour of home schooling things finally fell in to place, when under Becky Smith she travelled easily within herself, coming home nine lengths clear off a mark of 102. Her two most recent runs have shown another step forward each time, again at Newcastle she came home comfortably off a mark of 113, and on her most recent run back in novice company, under a double penalty at Catterick she was only short headed by the Tom George trained Zoutoise. The handicapper was suitably impressed raising her to a new high of 125.
Ilaya is lightly raced, she is finally learning how to race and obviously enjoys her job, judging her overall profile it appears there is still a lot more to come.