Folgaria delivered trainer Marco Botti with an emotional success when battling on strongly to land the Group 3 Dubai Duty Free Stakes at Newbury.
The Italian trainer has endured a tough time in recent weeks after the news that jockey Stefano Cherchi tragically lost his life following a fall in Australia, but spirits were lifted at Newbury on Saturday afternoon when Folgaria made a successful UK debut.
A perfect five from five as a two-year-old in Italy when trained by Marco's brother, Folgaria was sent off a 5/1 chance to stretch her unbeaten run to six on this first start off Italian soil.
With proven stamina over further, Kieran Shoemark set out to ensure the seven-furlong 1000 Guineas trial was run at an honest tempo as he let Regal Jubilee stride on from the front-running Star Music.
Regal Jubilee looked likely to prove tough to peg back approaching the two pole but Hollie Doyle quickly got a tune out of her filly and the pair stayed on best of all to see off the rallying Regal Jubilee by a neck.
Elmalka caught the eye with some good late progress to finish a never-nearer third under James Doyle.
"It's very hard to translate the form into English form, but she did nothing wrong in Italy and won all her races fairly easily last year," said Marco Botti's wife, Lucie.
"She's been pleasing us at home since she joined us and is very straightforward. We absolutely love her, hopefully she can do much better things in the future.
"The immediate plan is likely to be the French Guineas and after that the sky is the limit, she could be an international filly and hopefully not sold too soon for us. She's very talented, she's the champion Italian filly and she has showed now she is good enough everywhere else."
She added: "You couldn't write this, Andrea (Atzeni) winning the Sydney Cup with Stefano's parents there and now this filly bringing Italian racing to life again, it is quite special.
"Marco went to Stefano's funeral and obviously his brother trained this filly in Italy. Everyone is going to be so pleased, especially in the yard. The winter can be so hard for everyone so it's always so good to have such beautiful horses and those animals just bring us to life."
Paddy Power cut the winner to 12/1 from 20/1 for the French 1,000 Guineas.
