Audi Pretty Polly Stakes Betting Tips

There can be no doubt that the admirable Jim Bolger-trained mare Alexander Goldrun is the one to beat in the Audi Pretty Polly Stakes at The Curragh on Saturday, for which she is a top-priced 5/4 with Ladbrokes. The five-year-old was runner-up in the penultimate renewal of this race and duly went one better when coming from off the pace to cosily beat Red Bloom by a length and a half. The latter renews rivalry again this year. Strictly on the book, this race should be a mirror image of last year's with Alexander Goldrun coming home in front with Red Bloom again filling the runners-up spot. But, as we all know, races are not necessarily always won by the best horses, and don't always pan out as they should. invariablyThe most common reason for the best horse losing a race is pace. Or, rather, lack of it. And it's for this reason that I believe Alexander Goldrun is worth opposing in this Group 1 contest. The globetrotting daughter of Gold Away has won four Group 1 races and has ran some cracking races in defeat, including when finishing a close-up third behind Oratorio and Motivator, a race she may well have won but for meeting with trouble in running at a crucial stage. However, Alexander Goldrun needs a strong end-to-end gallop in order to be seen at her best. She is the type of horse that tends to break slowly and take a while to find her stride, before gradually warming to the task at hand and invariably she delivers a power-packed finish. When, however, a race is not strongly run, and is tactical in nature, it's hard for horses like Alexander Goldrun to settle into a rhythm. And this, I fear for those that will be tempted to lump on her, will be exactly what happens in this ten-furlong event. Personally, I reckon this will go to Red Bloom, whom is well worth an investment at 7/2 with Bet 365. On the three occasions she has met Alexander Goldrun, Red Bloom has finished behind her. However, the Sir Michael Stoute-trained mare has the tactical pace to cope with the perils of a falsely run race. The selection was in need of the run and unsuited by the testing conditions when well held in a Group 3 won by Strawberry Dale at York on her seasonal reappearance. That outing will have brought her to concert pitch and she is generally ridden close to the pace, which will be the best place to be should this turn into a tactical affair. One thing we know about Red Bloom is that she stays on well in her races, as she proved when readily accounting for Pictavia and nine others in the Group 2 Irish National Stud Blandford Stakes over this course and distance last September. I can envisage her pouncing early in the straight, as she did in the Blandford, and with Alexander Goldrun likely to find it difficult to produce her turn of foot at the end of what I expect to be a muddling heat, she should have enough in the tank to record her first top-flight victory since winning the Fillies' Mile as a juvenile in 2003. Verdict: 1pt Red Bloom @ 7/2 (Bet 365)