Today’s best bet, by Chris Cook
Before you can start looking for winners today, you must first find a runner. Heavy rain across the country is changing ground conditions as I type and the effect can be seen on the card at Bath, where an early soaking has already prompted 20 withdrawals. Meanwhile, Pontefract has survived an inspection but is heavy in places.
The rain is on its way east and is likely to have an impact on Brighton’s card, especially the later races. I should think Sandown will be looking pretty soggy when they race tomorrow.
Today brings another chance, possibly, to marvel at the young skills of Olly Murphy, a rookie trainer who has so far won with 12 of his first 29 runners, Flat and jumps. That’s an improbable 41% strike-rate, so no wonder he’s already building more boxes at his Warwickshire base.
At Yarmouth, he runs Gold Class (5.45), his first winner over jumps a month ago. That Rasen win was a big step up on what Gold Class had been doing for Robbie Hennessy in Ireland, so it seems a pretty good bet that the six-year-old will now turn in a better Flat effort than when he last ran on the level a year ago.
He has never won a Flat race on turf but has had a limited number of tries, mostly from a much higher mark than the basement level to which he has now dropped. Given that he is now 103 over hurdles, a rating of 45 is pretty attractive for a Flat race, attractive enough to make odds of 13-8 look pretty good to me.
With two ‘1’s next to her name, Fanfair is the obvious one for the fillies’ handicap at Bath but she’s up in the weights again for scrambling home under Sean Levey and it’s asking a lot for Hollie Doyle to keep the run going. Doyle, for what it’s worth, is 1/41 since returning to action from a broken collar bone at the end of last month and may not quite be on her best game.
So I’m looking at the 3-1 about Drumochter (4.00), from the Charlie Hills yard that continues among the winners. She ran with credit to be third on her handicap debut at Newmarket but looked a bit one-paced and can benefit from the extra two furlongs here, stepping up to the distance at which her only sibling won.
At Brighton, 16-1 looks on the big side about Harlequin Striker (3.20), who is finally back to his last winning mark, from June last year, and will be perfectly able to cope if the rain actually does turn up in the expected quantities. Well drawn for a prominent racer, he has been running well with the occasional excuse so far this year, the only flop coming at Epsom, where he boiled over in the preliminaries. He comes from the Dean Ivory yard that is hitting its stride.
Tips for all Wednesday races
Brighton
1.50 Haveoneyourself 2.20 Fenagh 2.50 Eugenic 3.20 Harlequin Striker 3.50 Finale 4.20 Born To Please 4.50 Whiteley 5.20 The Special One
Bath
2.00 Lucky Clover 2.30 Sancerre 3.00 Ingleby Mackenzie 3.30 Anythingtoday 4.00 Drumochter (nb) 4.30 Captain Pugwash 5.00 Our Lord
Pontefract
2.10 Bollin Ted 2.40 Dowitcher 3.10 Natajack 3.40 Kasperenko 4.10 Tarboosh 4.40 Stanley 5.10 Mr Orange 5.40 Ventura Secret
Yarmouth
5.15 Il Promo Sole 5.45 Gold Class (nap) 6.15 Imphal 6.45 Madame Bounty 7.15 Wotadoll 7.45 Whispered Kiss 8.15 Artscape
Kempton
6.05 Misu Pete 6.35 Harvest Wind 7.05 Paint 7.35 Kohinur 8.05 Desert Grey 8.35 Arab Moon 9.05 Clowance One
