Amazonica strikes on debut as Noel Fehily Racing wins at Leicester

Amazonica delivered a telling first start at Leicester, quickening away in the British EBF Novice Stakes to win by 1¼ lengths and give Tony Chapman & Noel Fehily Racing another Flat winner. The six-runner race over 1m2f on good to firm ground was run in 2m 7.64s, with Amazonica starting at 4/1 under David Probert for Owen Burrows.

Cloud Forest chased him home in second and Kudos Too was third, but the result mattered well beyond the bare finishing order. Amazonica was a €110,000 purchase at the May 2025 Arqana Breeze-Up Sale, and the syndicate had already described him as a colt with “loads of size and scope” when it mapped out a patient introduction to racing.

That patience was on show again here. The syndicate had originally hoped for an autumn debut, yet Amazonica was ready to cope with race conditions at Leicester and handled them well enough to score at the first attempt. For a horse carrying 9-4, and for a team that had invested six figures before he ever appeared in public, that is the kind of debut that validates both the market judgement and the training plan.

Noel Fehily Racing has long been associated with jumps success, but the Flat has become more than a side project. David Crosse said in May 2025 that the syndicate was turning its attention to the level and had bought three yearlings, a move he jokingly described as “being traitors” while making clear that winners for the syndicate mean more to him and Noel Fehily than their old riding careers. Amazonica’s Leicester win added another piece of evidence that the programme is widening rather than dabbling.

The operation has already shown it can land major prizes on both codes, with Cheltenham Festival success coming through Love Envoi in 2022. It has also had Flat runners such as Ascending Star in the frame as early-season prospects, and Amazonica now joins that line as a horse who should attract attention whenever he appears next. A debut winner with this profile, ownership and price tag immediately becomes a runner with expectations attached, and Leicester suggested those expectations were justified.