Horseshoe Bay, the three-year-old colt owned by Bermuda Thoroughbred Racing, delivered an encouraging performance in his first race of the season yesterday in the 5.10 at Newmarket, in Suffolk.

Trained by Sir Michael Stoute and ridden by Ryan Moore, Horseshoe Bay, who went off at 14-1 in the ten-furlong race, was well set in a line of four with one furlong to go before becoming slightly unbalanced in the good-to-firm conditions, running into the Rowley Mile’s famous dip.

The middle-distance horse was given a “hands and heels” ride — or with the jockey having no recourse to the whip — and was finally beaten by Global Force, the 8-1 second favourite trained by Godolphin’s Saeed bin Suroor, by four lengths.

Simon Scupham, the BTR chairman, said that there was no expectation that Horseshoe Bay would win, but believed that the race was a “good learning curve” for him.

“This was a very promising performance indeed,” said Scupham, a racing enthusiast who teamed up with Highclere, the leading horse syndicate management firm in Britain, to establish BTR.

“Horseshoe Bay is still a big baby with lots of growing to do. There was no expectation that he would win, nor was there any intention for Ryan Moore to give him a hard race.

“The competition was as high as you will find in a maiden. It was more like a group race in quality.”

Scupham said that Stoute was greatly encouraged by Horseshoe Bay’s outing.

“Right after the race, [Stoute’s] comment was that he is a ‘seriously good horse in the making’.” Scupham said.

“Like most of Sir Michael’s horses, he will take time to mature to reach his full potential and no one is better than Sir Michael at doing this.”

Horseshoe Bay, who is part of the same syndicate as Johnny Barnes — BTR’s flagship horse — made his debut on the all-weather surface track in the 1.50 at Lingfield, in Surrey, last October.

He was fourth, beaten by 1¾ lengths over seven furlongs.

BTR also purchased two more Bermuda-themed horses last year, Sir George Somers and Castle Harbour.

Sir George Somers, named after the founder of Bermuda, is the son of Cape Blanco, who won the Irish Derby and Irish Champion Stakes, and the grandson of Galileo, a prolific sire of racehorses best known for winning the Epsom Derby and King George VI and the Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

The impeccably-bred chestnut colt, costing 340,000 guineas, also has strong breeding on his mother’s side, whose father, Fusaichi Pegasus, triumphed in the Kentucky Derby in 2000.

Tasked with harnessing Sir George’s Somers’s natural gifts is Stoute, the Horseshoe Bay trainer.

Castle Harbour, the son of Kyllachy whose father Pivotal has been a prolific sire of stallions, will be trained by the venerable John Gosden, who has masterminded Johnny Barnes’s promising start.

All four of BTR’s horses were chosen by John Warren, who is regarded as one of the world’s leading bloodstock advisers and is the bloodstock agent to the Queen.