The horse racing broadcaster offers up his selections for the Newmarket Craven Meeting on Wednesday, sponsored by Betway.
Sandwiched between the two Nationals this year, Newmarket’s Craven Meeting also sees the Flat season step up a gear, with four races live on ITV4.
A stable change looks the potential key to the opener, with DOUBLE RUSH 3/1 (13:50 Newmarket) making his first start for Andrew Balding. The yard has a strong record with switchers (24/172, A/E 1.26), and the horse has effectively remained in the same ownership, with the Zhang Yuesheng horses racing under the Forz Europe banner this season.
Any trainer taking over horses for a new owner with significant numbers will be keen to get the relationship off to a good start, and Balding’s horses have been running well. Double Rush came to hand early last season, winning a three‑year‑old handicap at this meeting for his previous yard, before placing off today’s mark at both York and Hamilton. He goes well fresh, and even a small amount of improvement following the stable switch should see him hard to beat. Of the others, Diligently deserves a mention, with the Clive Cox yard appearing to have their horses quite well forward this season.
The first of the Classic trials is the Betway Feilden Stakes, with five of the seven runners currently holding Derby entries. With both Godolphin and Coolmore represented, it is worth revisiting a few statistics.
Firstly, the Charlie Appleby/William Buick record on their home patch, the Rowley Mile, is excellent. Appleby is 183/657 (A/E 1.22), Buick 226/1125 (A/E 1.14), and the pair combined are 137/410 (A/E 1.26). By contrast, Aidan O’Brien’s early-season challengers, pre‑Guineas, are often designed to test the water before the bigger battalions arrive for the Classics. O’Brien’s UK record in April stands at just 9/102 (A/E 0.42), with Swagman the only winner since 2019.
POSEIDON’S WARRIOR 9/4 (14:25 Newmarket) is the Godolphin runner here and can press his Classic claims by following up his Goodwood win, where he stretched away comfortably. This represents a rise in class, but there will have been ample opportunity to assess his credentials at home. One of the two runners without an Epsom entry is Wareeth, who blitzed a field at Newcastle last month on debut and is a fascinating contender, seemingly arriving from left field. With the favourite pulling up that day, there is a question over what he beat, but it was nevertheless a very taking debut, and it will be interesting to see how he fares when upped in class.
Attention then turns to the older horses in the Betway Earl of Sefton Stakes, also over nine furlongs, which looks a clash between two course‑and‑distance winners: Boiling Point (Cambridgeshire) and Damysus (Darley Stakes). Boiling Point has had the benefit of a run at Lingfield but may just give DAMYSUS 13/8 (15:00 Newmarket) a nice lead into the race. Very much the type to progress from three to four, John and Thady Gosden’s son of Frankel was initially tipped to reappear in the Gordon Richards. However, an entry in the Lockinge suggests connections are still considering dropping back to a mile. Now that he has proven the Newmarket Dip holds no fears, he appears to have greater scope for progression than his chief market rival.
The final race of the quartet is the Nell Gwyn Stakes, where nine of the thirteen runners hold 1000 Guineas entries. Most are priced on potential rather than achievement, which makes FITZELLA 18/1 (each‑way) (15:35 Newmarket) look overpriced from a value perspective. She ran consistently in Group company last season, including when fifth in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket behind True Love. History shows that far more reputations are punctured than enhanced in these trials, so if she can reproduce that level of form, she should at least make the frame on ground that suits, with proven form already in the book.
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