Saturday, July 19, 2014

U.K. racing today

there is also plenty of good racing in the U.K. with 6 meetings, 2 of them over jumps. There is quite a bit of rain forecast for some areas, so punters should watch out for any cange in the going (it is currently good to firm at most tracks) and any consequent non-runners.
Easily the most valuable race of the day is the Weatherbys Super Sprint for 2yo´s over 5 furlongs at 16.50. The weights for the 25 runners depend on the price they fetched at public auction, so Tiggy Wiggy (Richard Hannon/ Richard Hughes), who has the best form but also cost a lot at the sales, has to concede weight all round. The Hannon stable always target this race and have 5 runners, as does Richard Fahey, who won the race last year, and we fancy the Yorkshire trainer can follow up with Realta (Silvestre de Sousa), who can benefit from her low weight. Magical Memory (Charlie Hills/ William Buick) and Haxby (Roger Varian/ Andrea Atzeni) are the dangers to the big two. Also at Newbury, the Group Three Hackwood Stakes over 6 furlongs at 16.15 has attracted a strong field. Ahtoug (Charlie Appleby/ Buick) is very smart over 5 furlongs, but we fancy the final furlong could be a bridge too far. Hamdan al Maktoum has two contenders in Heeraat (Richard Hughes) Intibaah (Brian Meehan/ Paul Hanagan) in the first colours. Naadirr (Marco Botti/ Martin Harley) is a danger, while if heavy rain were to fall we would also fancy Eton Rifles (Stuart Williams/ James Doyle), but as it is, our selection is Music Master (Henry Candy/ Fergus Sweeney), who ran a great race when fourth in the Diamond Jubilee. The horses running today are in the listed race over 10 furlongs at 15.40. Al Kazeem (Roger Charlton/ Doyle) last ran in the Arc, Vancouverite (Appleby/ Jamie Spencer) in the Dubai World Cup and Triple Threat (André Fabre/ Maxime Guyon) in the Ganay! Al Kazeem is clearly the best of these on 2013 form, when he was just about the best horse in the world over this trip, but has had an abortive spell at stud since and is almost certain to need the race. We will go along with the Monsun colt Triple Threat, whose trainer´s raids on the U.K. are always well planned.
There is also decent flat racing at Newmarket, where Ryan Moore can take the fillies listed race at 15.25 with Sir Michael Stoute´s Astonishing before jetting off to Ireland, but otherwise the most interesting sport comes over the jumps from Market Rasen, which stages just about the best jumps meeting of the summer. Tony McCoy has 6 rides and looks certain to beat Martin Pipe´s old record of 4191 winners; if he does not manage to win one of the first 4 races, he can score at 17.05 on John Ferguson´s Parllour Games.

Betting forecast Newmarket:
1. Race: Music Theory - Llanarmon Lad - Tanseeb
2. Race: Criteria - Astonishing - Khione
3. Race: Arethusa - Snow Cover - Jellwa
4. Race: Athenian - Lady Horatia - Holley Shiftwell
5. Race: Cloud Line - Marmoom - Moonvoy
6. Race: Englishman - Compton - Ansaab
7. Race: Winter Thunder - Agent Murphy - Earl Of Menteith