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The horse had been a there-or-thereabouts type punching it out in Graded and listed races for a few years before really making the breakthrough when he captured his first Group 1 in the Irish St Leger at the Curragh last September. He famously finished second to Masked Marvel in the St Leger during his three-year-old campaign but had only taken lower profile races prior to that.
Star Empire may be your each-way shout here but there isn’t much form beyond the first few contenders. This is one of the weakest of the group level races and the absence of the dearly-departed Cavalryman speaks volumes.
There is plenty of excitement ahead of us on Saturday at Meydan racecourse in Dubai as the world’s richest race is set to unfold along with a stellar card of racing that brings together top level thoroughbreds from all four corners of the world. The surface that the World Cup will be contested over is back to dirt and it’s going to be fascinating to see how the cadre of American shippers will do taking on the horses that have raced throughout the spring carnival, in addition to the hotshot European and Asian contenders.
Compounding the trickiness of the deep field in the third race, it’s also a novice hurdle so this one is literally anyone’s guess. With a 2m5f distance to be tackled in this Class 1 race, there is a lot of winning form coming into the race.
Spartan Angel is considered to be the betting choice right now with a price of about 7/1 but she comes in without winning since last June - losing on both attempts this year. She is a talented sort though and much is expected of her coming out of the Nicky Henderson yard.
We are expecting some big pools in the Saturday Scoop6 kicking off in less than 24 hours with action unfolding from Kelso and Newbury. It’s a stellar all-jumps card and we can expect some potentially big payouts if any punters are able to crack the six race sequence.
The third leg is the only really intense race with a number of runners - all the rest clock in at a maximum of twelve but the third will contain a full eighteen runners if they all make it to the tape.
The opener comes to us from Newbury where we have a pretty difficult race to...
He is getting some momentum on the ante post markets as well with most books listing him around 12/1 but a few having recently clipped him into 8/1 as a good volume of ante post money appears to be coming in on the O’Brien trainees.
Another O’Brien contender, Highland Reel, looks to be a fascinating contender and he wasn’t able to win his first time out but then did it in style in his second race where he bested a field of nine by a whopping twelve length margin. Ultimately, that’s how you want an 8/15 favourite to run in a maiden race.
Faydhan is the closest we have right now to a co-challenger with the John Gosden-trained colt being quite the opposite of Gleneagles with only the single run under his belt so far. While it wasn’t a super high-class race or anything, he was able to get the better of a ten-strong Haydock maiden race by a six length margin. That’s something to write home about and if the talented colt has come on in size and mental maturity then the 10/1 listing being bandied about on him right now could look like some pretty good value.
Now that the 2015 Cheltenham Festival is behind us, it’s time to start focusing on the Grand National but there are still plenty of punters out there who already have an eye firmly-fixed on the flat season with the ante post for the 2000 Guineas just starting to heat up.
As we head into the famous 1m contest for entire colts and fillies, we don’t have a genuine stand-out from the two-year-old season and that’s going to make this years iteration of the race even more interesting.
As it currently stands, Gleneagles ranks as the...
Lieutenant Colonel is a solid option here and he can be had in the 10/1 range and enters off two impressive Grade 1 scores at Fairyhouse and Leopardstown. While the first of those two was a four length margin that deserves plenty of respect, it’s the second victory that really proves he has the chops to stay at this level. He dug in deep and asserted himself late on and he's likely to do it again here.
The Pertemps Final is always one of the more difficult races to figure out but we’ll be looking at Call The Cops to do some damage here for Nicky Henderson. Andrew Tinkler gets the mount and he comes in fresh off a victory in a Class 2 Handicap Hurdle at Doncaster in late February.
It wasn’t so much the victory, but the manner of the five length victory, that tells you that he could be ready to make a statement here. You’ll find him trading around 10/1 and that puts him into each-way territory.
The action came quickly on Ladies’ Day at the 2015 Cheltenham Festival as we had plenty of interesting selections come in and we also saw a lot of drama such as the potential finish of Sprinter Sacre’s career as he was pulled up by Barry Geraghty entering the straight.
Sprinter Sacre’s connections have told the media that he will be scoped and then decisions will be made on his future. Both Sprinter Sacre and Sire Dr Grugy (who was well-fancied as the first-choice spoiler) failed to mount anything resembling a genuine challenge as Dodging...
