Improving Filly Worth A Small Interest At Doncaster
It’s been a decent enough start to July for me and I’ve been busy in the past week or so refreshing my tracker. This week I deleted no less than 250 6yos and 7yos from my tracker who hadn’t been seen for couple of years (they’ve presumably been injured/retired/sold abroad to make room for new arrivals and another 100 or so horses have already replaced them. I think I’ve now added over 300 new runners to the tracker in the past 6 weeks and they’ve already been bearing fruit.
The one thing that did annoy me this week was Gioia Cieca winning at Musselburgh. I’ve been chasing him around all season (unsuccessfully) and two of my biggest bets all season have gone his way (including when he was the focus of this column in May at York) but I just couldn’t fancy him off the back of his effort at Redcar last time out. It’s one of those things that happens in racing – as soon as you give up on one they go and win.
Just A Place Last Week
In last week’s column I tipped Adjuvant in the Northumberland Plate and I was pretty sweet on his chances of running well. He definitely looked one of the more likely winners until the final furlong where he just weakened relative to the others around him. I’m not really convinced he saw the 2m trip out, despite it looking as though it would suit, and I still think he’s well handicapped when dropping back to 1m6f. He still finished 5th which seemed to be paid as a place with all the bookies so it was no harm done.
Doncaster The Focus This Week
I always look forward to this weekend each year as it’s excellent racing at both Sandown and Haydock on Saturday, and I always try to make an appearance at Sandown for this fixture, which I’ll be doing again this year.
However their Friday cards aren’t the best and I actually prefer what Doncaster has to offer. They’ve got a couple of sprints I’m interested in, particularly the 4.05pm which is a 5f class 2 handicap for 3yo+. Yorkshire seems to have missed most the rain this week so I’m expecting this one to be run on fast ground.
Improving Filly Is Going To Be The Pick
Miss Brazen looks interesting in this. She raced for Karl Burke last season and managed to win twice and finish 2nd twice from five starts. She moved to Mick and David Easterby before the start of the season and looked in need of the run when 7th of 13 on soft ground at Thirsk. That was her first run on soft ground but it clearly wasn’t the ground that was to blame for the defeat as next time out she romped home by 4 lengths at Beverley in the mud.
She went up 10lbs for that win and you could easily have been forgiven for thinking that was going to be it for her but she actually makes most appeal for this race based on her two defeats off this sort of mark since.
She was 6th of 18 in a hot York handicap having hit the front going best a furlong out before fading a little late on. Getting beat that day was no disgrace given the 1st, 2nd and 5th have all gone close since and the 3rd was an excellent 6th of 21 in the Macmillan Sprint Handicap at York next time which is traditionally one of the stronger 3yo only handicaps. Where are all the subsequent winners I hear you saying? Well there are a few! The 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 15th have all come out and won. I expect the number of subsequent winners from this race to continue increasing in the coming weeks as some of those that have been narrowly defeated since will definitely be winning soon.
Miss Brazen was another to come out and frank the form of that race without winning. She was 2nd in the new 3yo version of the Epsom Dash on Derby day and that looked a strong race beforehand and that’s been proven to be the case since. The 4th and 8th finished runner up next time out and the 6th, 7th and 11th all won next time out. This is another race I expect to continue working out in the coming weeks.
Miss Brazen was dropped 1lb for the York run but raised 2lbs for Epsom which looks fair enough.
This race isn’t the easiest to figure out tactically. There are quite a few that can make the running, but who don’t do so consistently. Miss Brazen tends to be fairly close to the pace anyway, and can make it, so I’m not overly fussed about how it plays out although ideally I’d like her to get a tow into the race.
Lack Of Form Choices
Not many of these come into the race in brilliant form, which could cause some problems with the price we get on Miss Brazen. There are two last time out winners in here though and they are Ready Steady Freddie and Hiya Maite.
The former is a likeable type who thrives on fast ground but I’m questioning how well handicapped he is now off a mark of 93, he was a well enough beaten 4th in a similar type of race to this at the Shergar Cup last season off 94. He has conditions to suit but should find at least one or two too good here.
Hiya Maite is one I had down as still being well handicapped before winning last time out but his best form is on softer ground. He’s yet to race over the minimum trip on this ground though so it might have been the distance holding him back more than the ground when he was running on faster ground but he does have to prove himself now off a career high mark.
Not Keen On The Remainder
I expect the above trio to head the market and they’ll probably be followed by the slightly inconsistent Nomadic Empire. He tends to run well in a big handicap and then he lets his supporters down next time out. I do think he flatters to deceive but he’ll probably win a race like this before long.
The remainder all seem like they need to improve plenty on their recent runs. One who might be a big price who could run well is Intrinsic Bond. He is now only 1lb higher than when winning last season and although he hasn’t shown much this season, the Tracy Waggot runners haven’t been in particularly good form all season but she had a couple of winners on Wednesday and they might be about to bounce back. Intrinsic Bond is a bit of a Ripon specialist though so it might be there that he ‘bounces back’, although he did win here over 6f in 2020.
Final Verdict
The only horse I like in this race is MISS BRAZEN and whether or not she’s a bet is going to come down to price.
I think she should be the favourite to win this and I can see her opening up at around 3/1. At that sort of price she should be considered a small bet.
It’s possible the bookies might initially overrate the chances of Ready Freddie Go or Hiya Maite and make one of them favourite and I’d be pretty happy to see Miss Brazen put in at a price closer to 4/1 early doors.
If she opens up 9/4 or shorter I’d be struggling to recommend a bet on her, simply because I don’t really like backing anything once they get below 5/2. If that was the case I’d maybe be tempted to have a straight forecast on Miss Brazen and Ready Freddie Go, opposing Hiya Maite solely because of the ground, but we’d be talking miniscule stakes on that and I’d only really be doing it to try and get a better price on Miss Brazen winning.
There should be bigger/better/more competitive racing next Friday so hopefully I’ll have something a little more confident then.
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