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Ante Post Angles 09
June 2007
There
have been moves aplenty in the various ante post markets for Royal
Ascot in the past week, as the excitement builds towards the
Berkshire track’s main event in ten days time. However, my
interest is not in a specific race but rather in the top jockey
betting, where Mick
Kinane looks a knocking price at 8/1 with the two firms
to have priced up, Victor Chandler and Bet365. Kinane knows what it
takes to win this prize having won the London Clubs Trophy with 5
winners in 2005, when the meeting was held at York. He may be
getting on in years, but his services are in as great a demand as
ever, a fact highlighted by his post-Derby dash last Saturday to the
airport to ride Viva Pataca to
victory in Hong Kong.
With
Kieren Fallon still on the sidelines, he looks set to have the pick
of Ballydoyle contingent which could include likely race
favourites in Yeats,
Dylan Thomas and George
Washington, as well as useful older handicappers like Grafton
Street and Hitchcock.
The O’Brien three-year-olds may lack a superstar this season but
there is plenty of strength in depth for a tilt at the lesser
pattern prizes like Hampton Court
and the King Edward, while Henrythenavigator,
Warsaw and You’resothrilling
look smart juveniles. Couple this with a few smart mounts from his
retained Oxx stable, and the likelihood of some decent outside rides
in the handicaps; and Kinane looks sure to make a bold bid for
success.
Last
year’s winner Jamie Spencer is an obvious danger but he lacks
match practice having been suspended for the last few weeks and
surely James Fanshawe can’t be expected to have a number of
handicap winners at every Royal meeting. Frankie Dettori is the man
in form at the minute, but at odds of around 3/1 he is easily passed
over, especially with his Godolphin stable without a Group 1 winner
in England in eons, and seemingly no end to that poor run in sight.
Kinane’s biggest danger could well turn out to be Kerrin McEvoy,
who has looked a major talent of late and is likely to pick up
number of rides from the powerhouse Sir Michael Stoute yard (rides
that Kinane has had in the past), but his role as second string at
Godolphin could negate his chance.
Formlines
It’s pretty quiet on the home front this weekend, but the
form of Nizamar’s
last win at Clonmel suggests he won’t be far away in the 7.30 at
the Curragh tonight, a handicap over 10f for 3yos and upwards. In
landing that event by 3ls, he had Islandbane
and Bahhare Desert back in
second and third respectively and with that pair both winning their
next two starts in handicaps a hike of 12lbs to 64 does not look
particularly harsh. Andrew Heffernan’s charge comes here in search
of a three-timer, and with conditions to suit, he could well
continue his rapid progress since his return to action.
Harry Roger’s Flamingo Rainbow
ran a cracker to chase home Consulate in the 2m handicap at
Leopardstown on Wednesday evening, and in so doing provided Ted
Walsh’s hurdler Heavenly Blues with a healthy
compliment. The pair raced against each other in Germany, where Heavenly
Blues frequently came out on top, and the 5yo looks one
of the best-handicapped horses in Ireland off a mark of just 80.
This despite the fact that he won 4 handicaps in his native country,
and there has been plenty of evidence that ex-German runners are
well treated on their arrival in this country with the likes of Fields
Of Joy, Poppyfield
and Kapera enjoying success
recently. Heavenly Blues was a
smart novice hurdler for Walsh this spring, winning 2 of his 5
starts and placing in the others, and showed plenty of speed in the
process. A return to the level should not be a problem for him (he
was entered in this year’s Lincolnshire only to be taken out at
the overnight stage), and he will be a force to be reckoned with
when he gets some cut in the ground over a mile and a half. Flamingo
Rainbow himself looks well up to winning a handicap.
Pattern
Horses
Quinmaster
confirmed himself as a horse who hits form in the summer months when
landing the Listed Glencairn Stakes over 1m from the in-form
Cheyenne Star at Leopardstown on Wednesday evening. That win took
Mick Halford’s charge’s record in June, July and August to:
123191111 and the 5yo has never won a race in 13 starts at other
times of the year. His handicap form of last season suggested he
would have little problem in picking up a listed event this year,
but it took a reversion to front-running tactics to see him come
home in front here. Quinmaster
seems to resent being held up in his races, and often pulls when in
behind, something that will come as no surprise to anyone who has
seen the free-going sort’s behaviour in the
preliminaries. He could be up to making the transition to group
company in the coming weeks, especially if granted decent ground. He
doesn’t want it heavy as some claim – his record on soft or
worse reads: 6234909 – and genuine good going suits him best.
The Group 3 Ballycorus Stakes over 7f is the feature on
Leopardstown’s card this coming Wednesday evening and Modeeroch
could go close if, as expected, Munaddam
takes up an alternative engagement at Royal Ascot. Jim Bolger’s
filly is a trip specialist, and her record at 7f reads: 1231512 and
is yet to win beyond it. She was caught out by lack of fitness on
her seasonal reappearance when going down by a narrow margin and ran
a cracker last time over a mile at the Curragh, travelling best of
all in the Group 3 Ridgewood Pearl Stakes over a mile, only to die
in the closing stages, finding the trip just a bridge too far. She
is at her best on left-handed tracks, with all her four career wins
coming that way around and has never finished outside the first
three in four runs at Leopardstown. Last year’s winner An
Tadh, another 7f specialist, could well prove her biggest
rival.
Tony
Keenan
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