Tuesday, 18th Ascot 2019
Ascot’s 5-day Royal meeting gets underway this afternoon at 2.30....
We kick off with a G1, a G2 and then two more G1 events before the first big handicap of the meeting – the Ascot Stakes at 5.00....
I’ve got an interest in that race and in one of the G1s – the King’s Stand Stakes (3.40) – a little earlier on the card....
I distributed my advice for those races yesterday. If you missed that column, you can catch up right here....
In today’s column we move on to tomorrow’s action – and our big target is the 30-runner Royal Hunt Cup up the straight mile at 5.00....
It’s probably possible to go throughout the entirety of your punting career and never manage to back a Royal Hunt Cup winner – and perhaps not even a placer....
That’s the way of it when you choose to focus on races with 30 closely-matched runners going hell-for-leather up a straight-mile strip of turf....
But nobody forces us. Nobody holds a gun to our heads. Nobody tells us that we must do it....
We do what we do simply because we enjoy doing it....
And because we believe we can beat the odds across the long-term – regardless of what the short-term record might say to the contrary....
So, a race like tomorrow’s target contest fills us with hope and enthusiasm rather than with anxiety and trepidation....
Our mission – perhaps even our duty – is to identify horses we believe capable of getting competitive but which are trading at more attractive prices than we believe they should be....
This process can be as easy or as difficult as you want to make it....
It only gets properly hellish when you start obsessing about finding the winner – as if the preordained race-result is ‘out there’ in the ether like some distant radio broadcast that you can ‘tune-in’ to by twiddling the knobs and recalibrating the antenna....
But the pre-ordained result is NOT out there. Truth is, nobody knows what is going to win tomorrow’s Royal Hunt Cup. Nobody knows how the race will unfold....
All we can say is that some horses have better chances on-paper than others. And that some horses are priced-up more attractively than others....
Our job is to construct the Venn diagram and to identify the horses that occupy the intersections between the circles – and then take a view....
We always hope to do that job well. We set out to at least. The rest we leave to forces greater than our own understanding....
CLON COULIS is a hold-up horse that likes to come late with a withering finish....
In other words, she’s the perfect ride for Ascot-specialist Jamie Spencer and I want to be with the pair at this morning’s big 25s – that’s a price she can outrun....
She won a couple of Listed events last term before signing off for the season by getting undone at the weights in a G3 at Sandown – something you can draw a line through....
With Spencer onboard for her two runs this term – winning at Chelmsford before getting done by a wide draw, inadequate pace, insufficient trip and a lost shoe at Lingfield – this looks like a plan in action....
The 5yo handles the Ascot surface. We haven’t seen her up the straight at the track but she did record a win on the round course in a Listed contest last July – one that has produced subsequent winners....
Nobody rides the Ascot straight better than Spencer and I imagine he has had plenty to do with pinpointing this mare’s first big handicap target on turf. They can go a lot better than the price suggests....
You can make a case for loads of these. But you can’t back them all and my second pick is John Gosden’s STYLEHUNTER at 25s....
Gosden has form in this race having won it twice with Royal Oath (2007) and GM Hopkins (2015) – and with six other representatives hitting 7th place or better from just 13 runners in total....
In other words, he doesn’t waste bullets and knows when he has a suitable horse for this race....
At last year’s Royal meeting, Stylehunter finished 6th in the Britannia – the straight-mile handicap for 3yos....
What was notable about that race was the slower-than-usual pace. That didn’t help a horse stepping back from 10f and a faster pace would have seen him go a lot closer because he was finishing off very well in the closing stages....
The front-end runners didn’t go hard enough for him and they didn’t come back to him sufficiently at the end as a result....
The pace could prove much more to his liking tomorrow. He clearly gets further than a mile and off a strong gallop he could be sticking on up the rising finish when others have had enough....
He’s in at the bottom of the weights, he runs out of stall 25 and is reunited with Rob Havlin. He was gelded in the close-season and his campaign-debut at Newmarket should have taken some fizz out of him
He can run a big race at a big price....
The Contrarian Bet Box….To recap on where my contrarian money will be going tomorrow afternoon…. In the Royal Hunt Cup (5.00 @ Ascot).
That is my take on where the value lies – but you will no doubt have your own ideas and that’s exactly as it should be. |
That’s all from me for now....
I’ll be back tomorrow with my contrarian take on the action on Day 3 at Royal Ascot....
Win lose or draw – enjoy the racing this afternoon....
Until next time. Stay tuned.
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