Talent (horse)

Talent
Racing silks of James Rowsell
Sire	New Approach
Grandsire	Galileo
Dam	Prowess
Damsire	Peintre Celebre
Sex	Filly
Foaled	25 February 2010
Country	Ireland
Colour	Chestnut
Breeder	Ashbrittle Stud & M H Dixon
Owner	James Rowsell & Mark Dixon
Trainer	Ralph Beckett
Record	11: 3-1-3
Earnings	£489,197
Major wins
Pretty Polly Stakes (2013) Investec Oaks (2013)

Talent (foaled 25 February 2010) is a British Thoroughbred racehorse, best known for winning the classic Oaks Stakes in 2013.

Talent is a chestnut with a white blaze and long white socks on her hind legs, bred by the Ashbrittle Stud near Wellington in Somerset. Talent is from the first crop of foal sired by New Approach a horse which won four Group One races including the Epsom Derby, and was the equal highest-rated Thoroughbred in the world when trained by Jim Bolger in 2008. Other products of New Approach's first crop included Dawn Approach and the Dante Stakes winner Libertarian. Her dam, Prowess, won one minor race and was a grand-daughter of the Oaks winner Bireme, herself owned and bred by Mark Dixon's uncle R.D (Dick) Hollingsworth.

Talent is owned in partnership by the Ashbrittle Stud's owner James Rowsell and Mark Dixon. The filly was sent into training with Ralph Beckett at Kimpton near Andover in Hampshire. Beckett has described the filly as "very robust and hardy and she shows she’s tough in everything she does".

Talent began her racing career on 18 August 2012 in a six furlong maiden race for two-year-old fillies at Newbury. She started at odds of 14/1 and finished third of the ten runners, four lengths behind the winner Malilla. At Kempton on 7 September, Talent started the 6/4 favourite for a seven furlong race on the polytrack surface and won by a neck from Hanzada despite hanging to the left in the closing stages. In this race she was ridden by Beckett's stable jockey Jim Crowley.