Super Saturday, Resignations, and Some Holiday Thoughts

ALL THOUGHTS ARE MY OWN

VERY short and sweet this week as I am recharging my batteries ahead of the four day Cheltenham Festival that starts next week and will keep me out of mischief for about 20 hours a day.

Before then (and I am writing this earlier in the week for a change), I won’t go into global politics as I am sure we all have different views – but what are the chances I get to the Dubai World Cup at the end of the month? To my amazement, Super Saturday still went ahead at Meydan where we saw Native Approach return to his very best since leaving Godolphin for a shock 50/1 success in the Group Three Turf Sprint, the Crisfords land a treble on the night with Quddwah, Meydaan, and Title Roll, and the brilliant Rebel’s Romance win for the 21^sttime when landing the Group Two Dubai City Of Gold with ease. Where they go next and whether we will see any or all of them on the 28^th March is open to question, but under trying circumstances, those who helped it go ahead deserve all the plaudits. Bahrain also seem all set to continue regardless with the King’s Cup meeting due to start on Friday, so there is hope for the 30^th Dubai World Cup, but as things stand our Foreign Office’s  advice is (unsurprisingly) not to travel meaning my insurance is null and void, so that needs to change for me to make the trip.

Elsewhere the Cheltenham talk is never ending, and if you listened to every trainer jockey and owner in the racing media you would end up with 10 bets a race, so I am ignoring the hype for now and will finish with my old mate Darryll Holland who is on the move. I cant say there aren’t many places I would rather live than Newmarket, the headquarters of Flat racing in the United Kingdom and perhaps the World but then again, the lure of the weather in Mauritius must have been just that bit too tempting. The jockey turned trainer is upping sticks to train at the track over there having filed all the appropriate paperwork after perhaps not getting the recognition his training feats deserved (93 winners in five years is no mean feat for a relatively small stable), and although any of us will miss him on the track, I wish him the very best in his new career.

Finally, as you will have read Lord Allen has resigned as Chair of the BHA. This is nothing but bad news in my opinion with the racecourses appearing capable of getting whatever they want to the letter – or throwing their toys out of the pram. Can you imagine any football ground telling the Premier League what to do and when – its laughable – they are merely venues who are lucky enough to put on the sport and gain a piece of a pie that is not really theirs. Media rights remains the issue as far as I can see, with guarantees required by the tracks regarding future rights – but surely it is the owners, trainers, and jockeys who should see the biggest chunk of that particular revenue stream, after all, they provide the stars of the show? As things stand it looks like a poisoned chalice to me, and getting a reputable successful business leader to take over next is going to be a Herculean task – someone somewhere needs to call their bluff, be that owners’ strikes or refusing to give them ANY media rights when the renewal is up for grabs in 2028 – tell them to stop slowly choking to death the golden goose, and try feeding it now and then?  

On to the racing……   and just the three this weekend.

Saturday racing

2.27pm Sandown

The Imperial Cup has always been a top-class handicap despite being placed a few days before the Cheltenham Festival, though it is no “gimmee” for favourite backers with just the one successful in the last 10 runnings. Go Dante has won this for the last two years and is back for more in the search for a hat-trick, but he has to carry 5lb more this season, though his course record of 111 for three starts makes him impossible to ignore, even at the age of 10.  You will be pleased to read I don’t have the time to profile the race in full, but I did note that Olly Murphy, Paul Nicholls, and the Twiston-Davies team are the only trainers in action here to have won it more than once, suggesting it is as tricky to solve as I thought it was. All three have runners in 2026 (Fingle Bridge, Go Dante, Afadal, Nardaran, Spirits Bay, and Top Jimmy), while Mando Man heads the early betting for the Moore’s after winning at Plumpton – though that was only a maiden. Looking at past runnings for the ratings carried to victory among other things, and I think I have got it down to a pair of each way chances in Jack Hyde and Wreckless Eric, but decisions have to be made and I have come down on the side of Wreckless Eric who was second last year off 3lb higher and looks to have been laid out for this season after some below par efforts have seen his mark come down to one that is clearly workable. Cheekpieces are added for the first time this afternoon which may being a touch of improvement, and at a double figure price he certainly has each way chances.

3.00pm Sandown

A Listed bumper worth more than £17,000 to the winner is next on the Saturday list, and a race won by Charisma Cat for Alan King last year, and which usually goes to a well-known stable. We haven’t seen a winner priced longer than 13/2 in the last decade so that suggests we look at or near the head of the market, but sone when have I followed the rules? I can see why Burds Of A Feather is as short as 9/2 after she made all for a runaway success at Warwick last time out, but every other jockey in the field will be aware of those tactics, and I will be surprised if he gets away with it again. Pretty much all of these are on an upward curve but I cannot for the life of me work out why Orestina is such a massive price? A once raced daughter of Masar and a half-sister to winners on the Flat, she made her debut at Newcastle in an all-weather bumper where she travelled well near to the front runners before being sent clear to win by over three lengths with what looked like plenty in hand. Trainer Paul Robson may not be a household name compared to most represented here, but he may have a decent one on his hands here, and I would go so far as to suggest she would be half the price or less were she in the care of someone else.

3.15pm Wolverhampton

The Lady Wulfruna Stakes (Listed) rounds off our Saturday trio, a seven furlong contest on the Tapeta that went the way of Mick Appleby’s Royal Zabeel in 2025. With four-year-olds winning seven of the last 10 runnings, including the most recent three, that age group looks likely to hold sway once more, and with only two of the eight fitting that statistic, I will focus my attentions there. Prince Of India is decent enough on his day but hasn’t been seen since finishing eighth in the Group Three Bengough Stakes at Ascot in October and the lack of a recent race for him points me in the direction of Cool Hoof Luke, Andrew Balding’s four-year-old who won the Group Two Gimcrack Stakes at York as a two-year-old, where he had Middle Park Stakes and Dewhurst Stakes winner Shadow Of Light three quarters of a length behind him at level weights. He did sadly miss the whole of his three-year-old career, forgoing an attack on the classics, but returned to action at Lingfield when third on his first start in 17 months. Whether he will ever reach the levels once hoped only time will tell, but thew added furlong ought to suit this afternoon and with that run under his belt we may see what he is really capable of.  

Sean’s Suggestion:

Cool Hoof Luke 3.15pm Wolverhampton