Find all previous Seymour Biz racing previews in his weekly column: Saturday Horse Racing Tips.
Televisions are covering two meetings and seven races this week, three from York and four from Ascot. The latter include King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, which has cut up rather badly due to illness and injuries. It now looks like a match between the super consistent Love and this year’s Derby winner Adayar.
We can see how good this year’s crop of three-year-olds compares to their elders by Adayar’s performance against O’Brien’s superhorse. Personally, I think Love will put him in his place. So I have looked at the other televised races for this week’s Lucky Fifteen and here are my thoughts for the best value bets on the two cards.
Saturday Lucky Fifteen
1.50 Ascot. Attagirl
3.00 Ascot. Matthew Flinders
2.05 York. Mid Winster
2.40 York. Golden Apollo
Bet this lucky 15 now on Bet365
Beginning with the Ascot meeting and the 1.50 the Princess Margaret Keeneland Stakes, a 6-furlong contest for 2-year-old fillies. Several of these have already raced against each other and Richard Hannon’s System seems to have come out on top, hence she has favouritism. On her latest outing at Newmarket in June, she beat Desert Dreamer, Delmona and Fabiosa. There is a line through Desert Dreamer who has finished in front of Nymphadora, Crazyland, and El Hadeeyah.
So System would appear to be the pick of this bunch. However, there are other challengers who enter the calculations. One of which is Rebecca Menzies’s Miss Calculation who won on heavy going at Doncaster earlier this month. And the other is Archie Watson’s Nazanin who was victorious at Newbury last month.
Neither of these two unbeaten fillies is without a chance but I am looking at a genuine improver to take this and that could be Kevin Burke’s Attagirl. She ran green on her first run at Haydock in early June and finished third but showed she had learned her lesson when she returned to the same course three weeks ago and won easily by 4 lengths. She looks like she can add to her tally.
At 3.00 we have the Moët and Chandon International Stakes, a Heritage Handicap run over 7 furlongs. Top weight and favourite is Richard Hannon’s Motakhayyel on the strength of his victory at Newmarket in the Bunbury Cup a fortnight ago where he put several of the horses he meets here to the sword, but he has a 3lb penalty for that giving his rivals a major chance.
Owen Burrows’s Danyah was second in the Buckingham Palace at Royal Ascot and returns to the course to try and gain some recompense for that defeat. He meets several horses he beat that day but needs to cope with a 5lb penalty.
One of those he defeated won this race in 2019 and that is Jamie Osborne’s Raising Sand, an Ascot specialist. He was 6th at the Royal meeting and as a 9-year-old seems to find one or two too good for him these days.
I put up Lord Rapscallion a couple of weeks ago when he ran third at 33/1 and Stuart Williams’s grey may well hit the frame again. But my money is on Ed Walker’s Matthew Flinders who was second in a Listed Contest at Chester earlier this month. Walker has high hopes he can go on to Group company in the future and this is a stepping stone to those ambitions.
Moving north to York and the first race on the card is the 2.05 the Sky Bet “Jump Jockeys’ Nunthorpe” Handicap, a 5-furlong sprint. The clue is in the title and for jump jockeys in opposition over this sprint distance I can’t help feeling that the trainers’ advice will be ‘hang on and go like hell’. So from this, the form of the relative horses may not be the decisive factor.
Paul Midgley is providing five of the runners here the best of which should probably be James Watt who was a course winner earlier this month, Brian Hughes has the ride.
David O’Meara’s Soul Seeker was a winner at Hamilton a week ago and Tom Scudamore has the mount.
Nigel Tinkler’s Beverley specialist Ginger Jam had a recent victory at Bath showing he can win somewhere but East Yorkshire so he returns to the north and has the skilful Bryony Frost in the saddle. But I look to another Midgley horse Mid Winster who won well at Doncaster earlier this month and has Sam Twiston-Davies riding.
Finally, at 2.40, we have the Sky Bet Dash Handicap, a 6-furlong sprint. The top weight here is Phillip Makin’s Lahore, a course winner over 5f, but he has not shown that sort of form recently and looks too high in the weights.
David O’Meara has a couple here with chances, Gulliver and last year’s winner Muscika- The former is a course and distance winner but has shown little form this year and the same can be said of Muscika.
Tim Easterby’s Music Society has shown some consistency this season, including a win a Pontefract. He may finish in the frame.
Clive Cox is known as a specialist trainer of sprinters and he has Streamline in the lineup. This horse won three times as a 3-year-old then has concentrated on the all-weather this season winning once at Newcastle. It remains to be seen how he copes with turf so he is probably watched.
Tim Easterby has three runners in this and probably the best of them is last year’s runner-up Golden Apollo who ran a good race last time when finishing second at Pontefract when fancied. He has the ability to go one better than last year in this contest.
Saturday Lucky Fifteen
1.50 Ascot. Attagirl
3.00 Ascot. Matthew Flinders
2.05 York. Mid Winster
2.40 York. Golden Apollo
Bet this lucky 15 now on Bet365