Racing Post Trophy at Doncaster

Typical Saturday overkill today, with the Racing Post Trophy at Doncaster, more group races at Newbury and Leopardstown, as well as the best jumps racing of the season so far at Chepstow and Aintree. The Group One Racing Post Trophy for 2yo´s over a mile at 16.50 CET is clearly the top race of the day and this race has an excellent record as a guide to the following season´s Derby and St. Leger (Kingston Hill won last year). At first glance the race looks slightly sub-standard and we don´t see any Camelot in there, but his trainer Aidan O´Brien has won this race 7 times (with 4 subsequent Derby winners) and now saddles two runners- Aloft (William Buick) and Jacobean (Colm O´Donoghue), both of them moving up sharply in grade. The choice of jockeys looks a bit unusual, but that is because Joseph is suspended while Ryan Moore is in Australia- and won the Cox Plate for the stable earlier today. Of the two we prefer Jacobean, who made a satisfactory debut when 2nd of 22 to a stable companion (Royal Navy Ship, who runs 40 minutes earlier in a Group Three at Leopardstown) and looks likely to make dramatic improvement now - he will need to in order to beat Elm Park (Andrew Balding/ Andrea Atzeni), who looks very smart and has won his last 3 races, including the Royal Lodge. Celestial Path (Sir Mark Prescott/ Luke Morris) is unbeaten in two starts and also moving up in grade, as are Restorer (William Muir/ Martin Dywer) and Snoano (John Gosden/ Paul Hanagan), Elm Park is the proven performer here, but Jacobean is probably the runner with the most potential and in view of the stable´s outstanding record here, we shall side with him.

The rest of the Doncaster card looks very tricky, but we hope that Richard Fahey can take the two top handicaps with Emeradhiz (Jack Garrity) at 15.40 and Ballesteros (Hanagan) at 16.15.

At Newbury we think that Penglai Pavilion (Charlie Appleby/ Adam Kirby) could be an interesting each-way bet in the St. Simon Stakes at 15.20. he was trained by Andre Fabre last season and finished 5th in the Arc, but has has been well beaten on all his starts for Appleby; however that trainer is now in top form and, more importantly, Penglai Pavilion now runs on soft for the first time this season. As a son of Monsun, this is probably what he needs to return to his best and his Arc fifth (on very soft) is clearly the best form in the race.

Over jumps, we would rather see the form settle down a bit before getting heavily involved, but it is possible that last year´s winners can follow up in the feature races at Chepstow (Shammick Boy at 17.10) and Aintree (Conquisto at 16.00). Neither has won since those wins, but are now very well handicapped as a result.