Friday, 20th August 2021
It’s Day 3 of the Ebor meeting up at York – and the Sky Bet Handicap over the 12f trip is the feature race of the day for handicap punters….
If you missed my selections for that race, catch up here. My focus is already on the Day 4 card (tomorrow)….
I’m always 24 hours ahead of the game – in the hope of bagging the best of the prices about ‘live’ contenders the market is overlooking, underestimating or just plain wrong about….
Let’s crack on….
The feature handicap of the final day – indeed the entire meeting – is the Ebor Handicap at 3.35. A field of 22 goes to post to battle it out over the 16f trip with the winner taking home a cool £300k….
You might recall that back in 2015 Joseph Tuite produced Litigant to win the race off the back of a 491-day break. It was some training performance….
Tomorrow, William Haggas, John Gosden and Willie Mullins all have a crack at pulling off a similar trick. Hamish, Humanitarian, and Mt Leinster seek to overcome respective breaks from the track that amount to 428 days, 337 days, and 314 days….
Of the trio Hamish is the most fancied at 15/2. It’s not hard to see why. He’s an unexposed track specialist with Tom Marquand booked for the assignment tomorrow – suggesting he’s the pick of William Haggas’s four representatives….
I’m certainly not saying he can’t or won’t win. He might well do so. But with no recent track evidence to underpin positivity, backing him at the single-figure price requires a leap of faith that I can’t bring myself to take. Ditto the Mullins-trained Mt Leinster at 11s….
My preference is to swing the bat at a proper price and David O’Meara’s EAGLES BY DAY fits the bill at the general 33s & 28s….
The Ebor was mentioned as a possibility last year immediately after the horse won on debut for O’Meara over tomorrow’s course and distance. In the end he went for the Lonsdale….
I think the Ebor has been his primary target this time though. He’s had just the one run this term – at Goodwood over an inadequate 12f where he was slowly away and finished beaten far enough….
No matter. The trip tells you it was a pipe opener and it was a better seasonal debut than he’d produced in either of the preceding two years….
Something else worth noting is that this horse generally improves mightily from his first run to his second….
He’s no forlorn hope tomorrow. He’ll handle the quicker ground better than plenty of his opponents and the 33s & 28s is on the big side in my book….
Each-way backers take note: Sky Bet are 1/5 the first 8. You can get 1/5 the first 6 and 1/5 the first 5 generally….
I’m keeping it simple in the Melrose and backing John and Thady Gosden’s IMPERIAL SUN at the general 12s….
Last time at Wolverhampton he ran over the longest trip he’s run over to date (12f) and produced his best performance yet – improving on his career-best RPR by 10lbs….
For sure, he was running in a C5 handicap for horses rated up to 75. In other words, he wasn’t up against world beaters. But he’s a work in progress and I expect this step up to 14f to produce more improvement still from a young horse related to a St Leger winner….
Running out of box 1 might be seen as a disadvantage for a horse that wants to be held up. But Robert Havlin doesn’t have to make an immediate dash from the gates. He can bide his time and drop in. And I think that’s what he’ll do….
Each-way backers take note: Sky Bet are 1/5 the first 7. You can get 1/5 the first 6 and 1/5 the first 5 generally….
The Sky Bet Handicap over the 10f trip at 4.45 gives horses that finished behind Johnny Drama in last month’s John Smith’s Cup another chance to win a pot over the same strip of track….
Plenty line up to take the opportunity. Whilst others – like Qaadar and Migration – show up on the back off successes at Glorious Goodwood….
Again, I’m keeping it simple and backing Jedd O’Keefe’s STRAIT OF HORMUZ at the general 10s….
For me, he was the really unlucky horse in that race at York last month – where he finished 3rd of the 20 beaten well under a length….
There wasn’t much pace on despite the big field and it proved an advantage to race prominently. Strait of Hormuz was further back than desirable and might well have prevailed had the early pace been hotter….
On paper there’s no shortage of early pace in tomorrow’s race and if it translates into pace in the early stages of the race then the 4yo can gain compensation….
Andrea Atzeni climbs aboard for the first time since the pair combined to win at Doncaster last term. Fortuitous? A plan? Happenstance? Who knows? I see it as a positive….
Each-way backers take note: You can get 1/5 the first 5 generally….
Nick’s contrarian picks….To recap on where my idea of the value lies tomorrow afternoon…. In the Ebor Handicap (3.35 @ York).
In the Melrose Handicap (2.25 @ York).
In the Sky Bet Handicap (4.45 @ York).
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 today. I’ll be back next week. Meanwhile….
Anything to report? Anything to say? Anything to share? Contact me at: nick.pullen@oxonpress.co.uk
Until next time. Stay tuned.
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