John River was an easy winner of a Class E autostart at Enghien, drawing away from the field in style to maintain his promising career profile.

Fourteen runners all showed a fair level of pace from behind the mobile and the eventual winner John River was settled at the back of the group, around ten lengths behind the leaders. Down the home straight for the first-time driver Franck Ouvrie was making eye-catching headway on the outside as he raced three off the inside, in midfield taking the left-handed turn into the far side. 

The son of Bold Eagle continued to make progress on the outside and at halfway was four deep but in sixth place travelling strongly. As the runners past their starting point, the Sebastien Guarato trained colt continued his good speed sweeping around the leaders being five off the inside pegs to take up the front-running position with 800m to run. 

With him securing a two-length advantage exiting the back straight there appeared to be multiple challengers waiting to pounce on the new leader. Entering the home straight the three-year-old maintained his speed and increased the tempo further finding extra when passing the 200m marker to hold a four-length lead. Despite late progress from Jet des Baux (faded late to be third), John River was an easy and unchallenged winner who impressed. He is a name to look for going forward. 

Sire, Bold Eagle was a sensational top-grade performer with 21 Group One victories including multiple wins in the G1 Grand Prix de Wallonie (2300m) (2017/2019) at Mons (Belgium), the 2016 and 2017 champion of the G1 Prix d'Amérique Legend Race (2700m) at Vincennes alongside top-level triumphs in Canada (Woodbine) in the G1 Breeders' Crown Open Final (1609m). 

John River made a winning debut at Saint-Omer at the start of May before a DQ at Cherbourg a month later. However last week he bounced back to winning form and coming from the top Sébastien Guarato yard, he is open to plenty of further improvement.