Today’s best bets, by Chris Cook
You may have looked at today’s Doncaster card and thought, “Tony McCoy down to ride one on the Flat? Another great foul-up by Weatherbys.”
But it’s a real thing. A charity race has lured the 20-times champion jump jockey out of retirement, which is why the headlines today are once more full of references to “longest reigning”.
McCoy has had a tonne of coverage and, would you believe it, his mount, Gannicus, heads the betting. It puts me in mind of an old Nick Mordin piece in which he said that ante-post prices were almost directly related to the quantity of press coverage each horse had had.
While it is quite understandable that we are all excited to see the great man back in action, this might be the moment to recall that his record in Flat races (excluding bumpers, which are a slightly different animal) is not all that, amounting to one win from eight attempts in the past decade.
So I shall take my chances, to very small stakes, with Johnny Murtagh and Commissar (3.25), who is just 4lb higher than when beating a similarly big field in an amateurs’ race at Goodwood in June. He was a beaten favourite last time in a Redcar claimer but ran to his rating or perhaps even a bit higher, despite not having things work out very well for him.
If your nerves can stand it, Ferryover (2.00) is appealing at 7-2 for the opener after finishing strongly to be second in the valuable sales race at York. He was held up for a late charge by Jamie Spencer that day and Spencer is likely to employ similar tactics, now that the horse steps up in distance by a furlong. But it’s not a huge field and Ferryover promises to be quite a talent, so I have every hope that the two of them will hit the front in time.
Spencer is also on Akeed Champion (4.10), a Richard Fahey horse who was frustrating until a summer break appeared to make quite a difference. He looks very attractively handicapped to me, 4lb higher than for his narrow Newmarket win under Jack Garritty, so 3-1 is fine, although this is likely to be another nail-biting ride.
Tipping competition, day three
Our winners so far:
Monday
Equity Risk 4-1
Equally Fast 14-1
Light Wave 8-1
Tuesday
Almuheet 15-2
Justice Day 5-4
Kakatosi 16-1
And our leader is …
Knottlamag +16.25
… who had a third winner of the week in Justice Day, while Sportingbest and spudpwt (both +11.25) also had that winner. kmill68 (+11) was the only one to find Kakatosi.
Today, we’d like your tips, please, for these races: 3.00 Doncaster, 3.35 Doncaster, 4.35 Carlisle.
This week’s prize is a pair of County enclosure tickets to Doncaster for the St Leger a week on Saturday, on 12 September, kindly offered by the racecourse. If you don’t win, you can buy tickets to any of the four days of the Leger festival here.
As ever, our champion will be the tipster who returns the best profit to notional level stakes of £1 at starting price on our nominated races, of which there will be three each day up until Friday. Non-runners count as losers. If you have not joined in so far this week, you are welcome to do so today, but you will start on -3.
In the event of a tie at the end of the week, the winner will be the tipster who, from among those tied on the highest score, posted their tips earliest on the final day.
For terms and conditions click here.
Good luck!
And post your tips or racing-related comments below.
