2013 Qipco Champions Day Betting Preview: Fillies & Mares’ Stakes PT 2

Having won that last contest and now looking solid with another score laid out before them with a four pound weight allowance, they look likely to factor into the equation in this relatively limited field. 

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The Lark can be backed at an 8/1 price with most major continental bookmakers. 

Dalkala comes into the race off a sensational score in the Prix L’Opera as she flourished down the stretch at Longchamp to capture the Group 1 score by the slimmest of margins as she collared the well-fancied Tasaday. Sent off at an impressive 8/1 price tag, you have to admire her resiliency. 

The Giant’s Causeway filly, out of an Anabaa mare was a real feather in the cap for the Aga Khan and, turning her out again so soon after that win at Longchamp shows that they think she’s ready to make a real statement. It was a breakthrough win for her as she hadn’t been in the winners circle since her second race of the year when she won the Group 2 Betfred Middleton Stakes at York. 

Her late-running style contrasts well with the soft ground expected on the day and she will relish every part of the 1m4f to be tackled here. You can lock in a 4/1 price tag on Dalkala and it’s likely to get shorter on the day of the race itself. 

Igugu is the really big variable here and we all know how well-fancied she was when running in Dubai this year in nearly every single one of her races. The problem was that she didn’t win any of them and, though she was incredible in her native South Africa, Mike De Kock attracted short prices with her every time and she failed to deliver at 4/7 and then again at 11/4. 

There was a reason she only went off at 10/1 in the Duty Free and that’s because people stopped trying to win their money back on her. Losing to Sajjhaa each and every time she ran at Meydan this year, they really didn’t seem to place her too well or she just didn’t get acclimatized to the heat. 

She performed poorly at Sha Tin in April but then made a reappearance at Newmarket a few weeks back and mustered up a 2/11 run against Zurigha. While it was only a listed contest, she will have gotten a bit of confidence back from that and you reckon this was probably the target all along. 

Igugu is also an 8/1 shot for the win in this race.