Things sure are changing around here. Specifically, the ground.
It seems like we haven’t had fast ground since Cheltenham, and all summer long you have been looking for horses who, if not proven on easy ground, at least have had the potential to act on soft. Then, wham – a dry week and suddenly hooves are rattling.
From a betting perspective, it is important that you get with this new fast-ground programme fairly sharpish. If you do, it can provide angles. Take this afternoon’s Sky Bet York Stakes at York. (Where else would it be?)
It’s easy to be a clever-clogs in hindsight, but they were giving the ground as good to firm early this week, with no appreciable rain forecast. Colombian and Dubai Prince were, respectively, third and fourth favourites in ante post lists before Thursday’s overnight (sic.) declaration stage. They were precarious at best. Everyone knows that Dubai Prince’s best form is on easy ground, while Colombian wouldn’t be out of place in the London Aquatics Centre this week. It wasn’t a huge surprise when those two were absent from the list of declarations.
It wouldn’t have been a huge surprise if Planteur had also been absent. A son of Danehill Dancer, he is at his best with at least a little bit of an ease in the ground. Marco Botti said after the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Ascot that it was a pity that Wednesday was the only day of the Royal meeting on which fast ground prevailed, that it didn’t suit his horse.
You can make excuses for his Ascot run that don’t involve the ground. He didn’t run well on his only other attempt at Ascot, in last year’s renewal of the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, he got worked up before the race this year, just as he did last year, and it wasn’t lightning quick ground anyway. It may be that he just doesn’t like Ascot. Not all horses (or all people for that matter) do.
Planteur could out-class his rivals today. He is the highest-rated horse in the race, he is a Group 1 horse, a Group 1 winner, competing in a Group 2 race without a penalty, against a lot of listed race and Group 3 race graduates. That said, the winning times at York last night suggest that the ground was, indeed, lightning fast. Barefoot Lady almost equalled standard time in the fillies’ listed race, while Elegant Flight went 0.32secs faster than standard in the opener, a Class 4 one-mile apprentices’ handicap. That may be just too fast for Planteur.
Afsare put up the best performance of his career on his latest run at Sandown, when the ground was riding on the easy side, while Hunter’s Light also put up his career-best on soft ground, when he won a listed race at Goodwood last September, so you might want to tread a little warily with those. Marcret and Pekan Star shouldn’t be good enough.
That leaves a shortlist of six: Ransom Note, Wigmore Hall, Sri Putra, Premio Loco, Jet Away and Side Glance. All six are available at odds of between 7.6 and 16.0 on Betdaq, and you could make a case for backing any of the six at their respective odds. I have backed Jet Away and Side Glance, I think that those two represent the best value of the six at current odds, but I will probably perm the six of them in exactas and reverse forecasts as well.
Spreading this fast-ground net a little wider, it might also be an idea to concentrate for the next few days on horses by sires whose progeny are generally good on fast ground, but perhaps generally not so good on soft ground. These are horses who have possibly been running through the early part of the summer on unsuitable ground, and who may be under-rated and therefore over-priced now that they are back on terrain that may be more suitable.
This strategy would have paid dividends yesterday, with wins for Thistle Bird (by Selkirk), Stencive (by Dansili, with another son of Dansili chasing him home), and Sequence (by Selkirk). Also, Oasis Cannes (by Oasis Dream), Emirates Queen (by Street Cry) and Showboating (by Shamardal) all went close.
There is a plethora of representatives of fast-ground sires around today, but some of the more interesting ones for me are Farlow, Van Ellis and Swiss Cross in the big sprint handicap at York, Ajjaad, Desert Law and Excel Bolt in the big five-furlong handicap at Ascot, and, of course, Jet Away in the Sky Bet York Stakes. At York.
(Where else would it be?)
Did you know that as well as checking the realtime prices on BETDAQ below – you can also log into your account and place your bets directly into BETDAQ from BETDAQ TIPS.
