Today’s best bets, by Chris Cook
Two years ago, on the day before Champions Day, Belardo won the Dewhurst, Charming Thought won the Middle Park and Together Forever landed the Fillies’ Mile. If three Group Ones were insufficient to divert you, there was also an excellent card of jump racing at Cheltenham, where Vicente and The Young Master were among the winners.
I can quite see that that might have been overkill at a time when our lords and masters wanted us to focus properly on the top-class action to follow the next day. But I think perhaps we might have gone a bit too far the other way because the race I’m most interested in this afternoon is a Redcar contest for female amateur riders.
These are races in which Mick Easterby fares tremendously well and most effectively of all, in recent seasons, when teaming up with Joanna Mason, one of his granddaughters. Together, their recent record is 12 wins from 58 runners, a 21% strike-rate, which is miles better than the rate Easterby achieves with other jockeys who’ve had more than five winners for him in the past four years.
Their runner today is Melgate Melody (5.35), a general 7-1 shot, though there is a bit of 10-1 available as I type. He was second, beaten less than a length, over this course and distance on his handicap debut in May before something seemed to go wrong at Chelmsford next time. He was entitled to need his recent return at Newcastle, when he showed up well for a long way.
He’s at the bottom of the weights, fresher than most of his rivals and well drawn to go forward if that should happen to be Mason’s plan. He’s a three-year-old against mostly older horses, which is not a bad profile to have for a middle-distance handicap in autumn. There’s a lot to be said for him.
I note also that, at the age of 85, Easterby is having his best year for winners, strike-rate and prize money since at least 1988, which is as far back as the Racing Post’s database goes.
Also available, at Haydock, at 10-1 is Ustinov (2.35), who had no luck in running at Wolves last time and may have been poorly drawn at Ripon the time before. It’s only a month since he won over this course and distance, he’s just 6lb higher and Danny Tudhope rides for the first time since that day. A hood seemed to help him settle when fitted for the first time that day and it may help him again here, for all that he has since achieved two poor results in it.
Later on the card, at 3.45pm, Weekender is the latest Frankel to make his debut. I’m not really inclined to tip a newcomer in this space but his claims appear strong and he is at least worth watching. His dam is an unraced half-sister to five (five!) Group One winners and that’s not including Dansili, another sibling who was second at that level before becoming such a good stallion.
Weekender is trained by John Gosden, who has so far sent four Frankels to the track. Three of them won first time up while the other was beaten a short-head.
Today’s jump racing is not especially competitive, thanks to fast going, but I like the 2-1 about On Demand (4.10) at Wincanton, she having taken a serious step forward on her first run for Colin Tizzard, in a first-time tongue tie, at Newton Abbot last week. Tizzard’s horses have been running as though in need of their reappearance outings, which is hardly surprising, and she may do better again.
We are no longer able to continue with competitions every week, but they will still run in the biggest weeks (Cheltenham, Aintree, Royal Ascot, Glorious Goodwood and maybe one or two others, as well as the Christmas quiz).
We’ll still have a Talking Horses each day for tips, analysis and news, so we very much hope you’ll join us to chew over whatever racing happens to be going on and post your tips or racing-related comments below.
