Ebor Handicap at York

Athough only a handicap, the totesport Ebor over 1 3/4 miles at 16.25 CET at York today is the top race of York´s big August meeting. Of course it is not just an ordinary handicap - it is the most valuable handicap of the year in Europe, worth more than 200,000 pounds, much more than the Group Two races on today´s card and in fact more the most Group Ones.

The race was won last year by an Irish-trained runner ridden by star apprentice Gary Carroll, and he has again a chance with John Queally´s Elyaadi, who ran really well at Royal Ascot. He certainly appeals more than the other two Irish runners, Salute Him (Tony Martin/ Johnny Murtagh) and Dirar (Gordon Elliott/ Jamie Spencer), both of whom are badly drawn.

Last time out, Dirar was third in the Galway Hurdle and meets the winner of that race Overturn (Donald McCain/ Eddie Ahern) on much worse terms; form over hurdles does not always apply to the flat, but Overturn has been in brilliant form and is definitely one for the short list. He won the Northumberland Plate on his only flat start this season, while he is a leading fancy for the 2011 Champion Hurdle. However he is a front-runner, and although those tactics worked well at Newcastle and Galway, it will be much tougher to dominate this field.
He is likely to dispute favouritism with Martyr /Richard Hannon/ Richard Hughes) who has won 3 of his last 4 races and is much improved. However the same applies to several other runners, including Bernie the Bolt (Andrew Balding/ Jimmy Fortune), a winner at the recent Shergar Cup meeting.

Top-weight Dangerous Midge (Brian Meehan/ Martin Dwyer) missed a group race last week to run here, but will need to put up a group race performance to win off this mark, but he does have a touch of class and his stable is now in good form. The two Godolphin runners Darley Sun (Frankie Dettori) and Sopranist (Ted Durcan) also come into the reckoning; the former was an easy winner of last season´s Cesarewitch and probably needs further, while the latter is moving up in trip but is well handicapped. The same applies to Bridge of Gold (Markus Magnusson/ George Baker) and Fortuni (Sir Mark Prescott/ Seb Sanders), both relatively unexposed and very dangerous.

We have now mentioned 11 of the 20 runners, but the race is so open that none of them can be left out; however we hope that at least one of the above-mentioned gets placed!