Group races at Newbury

Rracing all over the place today. With 7 meetings this afternoon and two more in the evening, but pride of place clearly goes to Newbury, which stages one of its best cards of the year. Main feature is the Group Two Hungerford Stakes over 7 furlongs at 16.50 CET and even with only 6 runners, this looks tricky. Richard Hannon trains two of them, Producer (James Doyle), runner-up in a Group Three at Salisbury only on Thursday, and Professor (Richard Hughes), who looks his main hope but is up in grade. Gregorian (John Gosden/ William Buick) is top-rated, but also ran just a few days ago, when unplaced at Deauville on Sunday. With doubts over these, we prefer Breton Rock (David Simcock/ Martin Lane), running over his ideal distance and who will like the ground, and Chil the Kite (Hughie Morrison/ George Baker), a top handicapper well worth a try at this level.

There could well be a German winner in the Group Three Geoffrey Freer Stakes over 1 mile 5 furlongs at 15.40, as Girolamo (Peter Schiergen/ Adrie de Vries) has in our opinion a good chance. We must not forget that he was a close third to Pastrorius and Novellist in the German Derby two years ago and a repetition of that form would certainly be good enough here. He will like the soft ground (drying out now as the weather has improved) and this distance is also fine. Red Cadeaux (Ed Dunlop/ Gerald Mossé) is the best horse in the field, but although he has had a break, his last 4 races have been in Australia (runner-up in the Melbourne Cup), Hong Kong, Dubai and Japan, and one has to wonder when all this travelling will begin to take its toll. Ex-German Seismos (Marco Botti/ Martin Harley) is also to be aimed at the Melbourne Cup, and as he beat Girolamo last year in Munich, he must also be considered. Somewhat (Mark Johnston/ Joe Fanning) is the only 3yo in the field and has run two good races in the Eclipse and then the Gordon Stakes, while Willing Foe (Saeed bin Suroor/ James Doyle) is potentially smart but has not run for 15 months. Pether Moon (Hannon/ Hughes) is consistent enough in this grade, but is penalised as the only runner who has actually won a group race this year, which makes things difficult.

The rest of the day´s racing centres on handicaps, the best of which is the Great St. Wilfred over 6 furlongs at Ripon at 16.30. With 19 runners this is a lottery, but our two against the field are CD specialist Spinatrix (Michael Dods/ Connor Beasley), runner-up last year, and bottom-weight Tatlisu, one of 4 runners for Richard Fahey, who has booked top Irish jockey Declan McDonogh.

The 6 furlongs handicap for grey horses at 15.20 at Newmarket is a popular event, and the field includes the last two winners and several others who have run well in this before. We shall take a chance on Rylee Mooch (Richard Guest/ Philip Prince), who has run in this race 3 times already and now seems very well handicapped. The more normal 6 furlongs handicap 35 miniutes later can go to Piazon (Michael Bell/ Louis Steward) who will appreciate the return to softer ground.