Farewell To A Racing Legend

ALL VIEWS ARE MY OWN

Sad news coming in this morning (Thursday) with the passing of trainer Bill Turner at the age of 78 after a tragic accident. My memory may serve me badly (nothing new there I suppose), but I always remember backing his runners in the Brocklesby Stakes on the first day of the new Flat season at Doncaster – I doubt as many won as I would like to think but he always had one tuned up for the race, and it feels like that particular tactic made a profit over the years – even if it didn’t!

Elsewhere in the World of racing, it looks like we will have a real race on our hands in the Juddmonte stakes next week with Francis Henri Graffard announcing the unbeaten Daryz will join Ombudsman, Delacroix, and Japanese raider Danon Dacile at York over a mile and a quarter. Rated the best race on the world last year, the 2025 renewal has more than a sparkle of stardust about it as well, and it must be long odds on they keep the title.

Lastly, and I have to watch what I say here for obvious reasons, the bookmakers have in their various guises been drip feeding a warning to racing that if it gets away without an increase in tax but slots and casinos get badly hit, those costs will filter down to the sport and eventually punters via restrictions worse odds and so on. How racing ever got so tangled up with the bookmaking industry to the extent that some of them now think they can call the tune is beyond (and before) me,  but it’s a sad state of affairs when a billion pound industry can be held to ransom by those who have the ability (wrongly in my opinion), to do what they want to claw any costs or losses back at will.

On to the racing…..

Saturday racing

Newbury 1.50pm

Sometimes a touch of insanity rules in this game, and in a six horse race I cannot resist giving Ambiente Friendly one more chance at a big price. Moved to James Owen from James Fanshawe he is yet to recapture the level of his better three-year-old form, but if he does, he wins this and does so easily. In case anyone has forgotten, this is a horse who finished second in our Derby beaten three lengths by City of Troy, and followed that with a third in the Irish Derby, a length or so behind Los Angeles and Sunway. I will freely admit he has not hit those heights in six starts since with a fourth at Goodwood last time out, but the ability is clearly there, and if they can unlock it once more he could surprise them all.

Ripon 3.20pm

Time for a stats attack for the ultra-competitive Great St Wilfrid handicap – sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t – but we have found some big priced winners and even some forecasts from our final shortlist. Starting at the beginning and I have found that in the last 15 years: No winners have come out of stalls 1-3 inclusive, 14 winners were priced at 20/1 or shorter, none were older than seven, 14 came from the first 12 in the betting at the off, all were rated 88 or above, none were rated higher than 100, and 14 last ran within 30 days. Using those as our starting point (and sadly early prices as they are all I have), and the original field of 17 soon comes down to an easier to handle (and I didn’t believe it either) one – and his name is Alzahir. Trained by Jennie Candlish, the five-year-old Sea The Stars gelding belies the stamina in his pedigree having won eight races in all from five furlongs to a mile, including success at Ascot in July off just 2lb lower. Last time out he was mid field at Goodwood and I cannot pretend he would be my pick were I not looking at the facts – but they don’t lie, and at 9/1 I will be having a little each way on him but more in hope than with confidence.

The Curragh 3.27pm

Los Angeles let me down last time out when only fifth in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot, but he has won seven of his 12 career starts, three of them Group Ones, and is still on target for a shout at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris later in the year. Personally, I think he is better over a mile and a half even if he has won five times over this sort of trip, but with two months off to recover from his latest effort, and a drop into Group Three company for the first time since May last year, it would be a nasty surprise were he not to prove far too good for these.    

Newbury 3.35pm

We haven’t seen a winning favourite in the Hungerford Stakes since 2020 with Dream Of Dreams, and as he was the only successful jolly in the last 10 runnings it seems like all things are possible here. Four-year-olds have won six of those 10, and William Haggas three, and that may explain why More Thunder heads the early markets, but at 100/30 I can look elsewhere for more value. Rage of Barmby has a two out of two record at the track and warrants some consideration, but Witness Stand gets my vote – each way of course. He pulled off a 25/1 shock when winning the Group Two Lennox Stakes by close to three lengths last month, is officially the highest rated horse in the race, and won over course and distance on his only previous visit here, and if he is at his best once more, he looks to have every chance.  

Sean’s Suggestion

Witness Stand Each Way 3.35pm Newbury