group races at Newbury

a very busy Saturday with 9 meetings (including some decent summer jumps racing at 3 tracks) as well as a strong card at Deauville and also some excellent racing at Arlington Park in Chicago this evening.
However by far the best British card is at Newbury where the Group Two Hungerford Stakes over 7 furlongs at 16.15 CET is the main event. The interesting runner here is Soft Falling Rain (Mike de Kock/ Paul Hanagan), unbeaten in 7 starts, 4 of them in his native South Africa (including a Group One) and three in Meydan; he is clearly very smart, but there must be a doubt about him on his first race in Europe after more than four months off and on going a bit softer than he is used to. He looks certain to start favourite and could well win, but in our view the value must be to take him on. Two of his 4 opponents have run in Germany - Caspar Netscher (David Simcock/ Shane Kelly) won the Mehl-Mülhens-Rennen last year, while Tawhid (Saeed bin Suroor/ Johnny Murtagh) was third in the same race this year. Caspar Netscher has spent an abortive period at stud, but came back into training and ran an excellent race when runner-up to Garswood at Goodwood, while Tawhid was also a runner-up at the Glorious meeting, when second to Montiridge. Libranno (Richard Hannon/ Kieren Fallon) finished behind him there, and Gregorian (John Gosden/ Robert Havlin) was outclassed there in the Sussex Stakes but is meeting lesser opposition now. This is quite tricky, but we shall go for Tawhid, especially if any more rain falls.
Rain could also have a strong bearing on the result of the Group Three Geoffrey Freer Stakes over one mile 5 furlongs at 15.40, as Red Cadeaux (Ed Dunlop/ Gerald Mossé), Aiken (John Gosden/ Robert Havlin) and Biographer (David Lanigan/ Ted Durcan) all need some cut in the ground. Red Cadeaux is clearly the class act here and has been running well all over the world (runner-up in the Dubai World Cup and before that winner of the Hong Kong Vase), but he has a huge weight and his last two runs were disappointing, so we prefer the other two. Three-year-old Testudo (Brian Meehan/ Paul Hanagan) looks dangerous in receipt of a lot of weight.
Another lightly-weighted runner has caught our eye on this card, and that is Pearl Street (Henry Candy( Harry Bentley) in the 3yo handicap at 17.25; he has shown very little on his 4 starts so far, but is well-bred and could be well treated here.

Betting forecast:
1. Race: Tea In Transvaal - Pretty Flemingo - Sound Of Summer
2. Race: Speedy Approach - Be Ready - Expert
3. Race: Aiken - I`m Your Man - Lost In The Moment
4. Race: Soft Falling Rain - Caspar Netscher - Gregorian
5. Race: Democretes - Glen Moss - Dance And Dance
6. Race: Thomas Hobson - Dark Emerald - Jabhaat
7. Race: Hi Note - Chocolate Block - Aldwick Bay