A soft-ground card at Brighton and two early-season meetings over the jumps is the extent of the domestic programme today ahead of the first day of the St Leger Festival at Doncaster, which opens on Wednesday. There are still some points of interest, though, and many punters are likely to latch on to Send Up (3.55) when she makes the step up to 12 furlongs on the south coast.
Sir Mark Prescott has been getting horses handicapped at distances much shorter than their pedigree seems to demand before running up sequences at more appropriate trips for as long as most of us can remember. There is nothing to stop it in the Rules of Racing, and it provides the punters who back them with a steady stream of winners, albeit at steadily decreasing odds as ever more backers pile in.
Send Up is textbook Prescott: a filly closely related to stayers out of a Sadler’s Wells mare whose first three runs were at trips between seven furlongs and a mile, finishing fifth of six, ninth of 13 and 11th of 12. She steps up to a mile-and-a-half off an initial rating of 58 and will surely improve significantly for the trip.
And even at around 7-2 after showing so little to date, Send Up is probably worth backing. Prescott consistently records a strike-rate of 20pc or better with runners making their handicap debut, and while the profitability of backing them blind has declined somewhat in recent years, his 18 winners from 89 qualifying runners since 2013 are still in credit.
Elsewhere on the Brighton card, the consistent Field Of Vision (3.25) could offer some value against recent course-and-distance winner Black Caesar, who may have been a little flattered by his six-length winning margin on deteriorating ground. Sarstedt (2.55) should also go well earlier on the card, while The Clock Leary (4.35) and Kapricorne (3.45) look best on the jumps cards at Perth and Newton Abbot respectively.
Brighton
2.25 Montemiata, 2.55 Sarstedt (nb), 3.25 Field Of Vision (nap), 3.55 Send Up, 4.25 Oden, 4.55 Luxford, 5.25 World Record
Perth
2.05 Strait Of Magellan, 2.35 Johnny Go, 3.05 Pikarnia, 3.35 Theo, 4.05 Pads, 4.35 The Clock Leary, 5.05 Buy Mistake
Newton Abbot
2.15 Vancouver, 2.45 Third Act, 3.15 Catcher On The Go, 3.45 Kapricorne, 4.15 Quadriller, 4.45 Pension Madness
