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Friday 17 June 2011

Royal Ascot - The Golden Jubilee and Wokingham



Firstly what a great win for the blog today with Manassas winning in the last at the starting price of 12/1. Not only had he featured in the Master List but he has also had a couple of entries in the "Up a bit, down a bit" posts so he was well flagged up by me and you were alerted to his run earlier this week in "The Week Ahead" post (see below).....and he was in bold !!
Here is the entry from "Up a bit, down a bit" following his run in the Victoria Cup :
Hawkeyethenoo showed he had improved over the winter by taking this in taking fashion to win by 2 1/2 lengths from Brian Meehan's Manassas and he will now head for the Wokingham off an 8lb higher mark of 104. The second ran a very good race too and he has only been raised 2lb to 95, he ran well off 96 in last seasons Ayr Silver Cup and he seems to thrive in these big field handicaps.
As I told you earlier in the week I can only provide the dots you have to complete the picture and back the horse.

Anyway onto tomorrow and lets hope we can bag another winner although the going looks like deteriorating to Heavy the way the rain is coming down at the track and one look at the rainfall radar tells you the course is taking a battering this evening.

First up then is the Golden Jubilee at 3.45 were there are currently 17 runners and on this ground Definightly (0) must come into consideration with the one of the darlings of Ascot Olivier Peslier on board. This horse hasnt run for 217 days but is drawn highest of all and high have dominated all week up to now. I say now because people with memories of last year will remember there was a similar scenario only for it to change completely on the last day when there had been some over zealous watering by the Groundstaff the night before. That said high numbers were still to the fore in the last today(Friday) and its not as if they can de water the track, so it must be high again for me. This is a step up from Group 3win to a Group 1 race, albeit that win was a comfortable one on very soft in France. Roger Charlton had this to say about his chances "Definightly needs the ground to be as soft or heavy as possible and is drawn in stall 17 and as a front runner should have the advantage of being able to come up the stand rails. When he ran at Maisons- Laffitte he beat Dalghar no less than 9 1/2 lengths in heavy ground. Definightly has now won 6 of his 18 races and all on soft ground".
The stable also run Bated Breath and Genki however neither of those looks sure to appreciate soft ground.
Society Rock (1st 25/1) was a fast finishing 2nd in this last year on only his seventh start and although he hasnt quite lived up to that so far this year he remains one to keep on your side and the stable have been more pleased with him of late but how he will cope with soft is anyones guess as he has never run on it to date. Earlier in the week the stable's website had this to say "Society Rock had long time off and is as well as he has been all year but that may not be good enough to win the Golden Jubilee but we will be disappointed if he doesn't run well.
Irish raider Bewitched (0) wont have any trouble with the underfoot conditions and he won a Group 3 at the track at the backend of last year on Good to Soft when beating Genki into second and only having had 1 run 20 days ago when he beat Zoffany in another Group 3 he comes into this fresh horse.
Elzaam (4th) comes into this on an upward curve having shown a decent turn of foot last time out at Newbury when winning a Listed race by 6 lengths. This will only be his seventh start so it may come a bit too soon and he is another who we have no idea how he will act on the forecast going.
Star Witness (3rd) ran well here on Tuesday in the Kings Stand and he was only beaten 4 lengths by compatriot super sprinter Black Caviar on Good to Soft last November albeit he had no chance with the winner. He could improve now that he has Tuesdays run under his belt and he was staying on there.
Delegator (NR) is another that might not be suited by the going and one wonders how many of these will not be risked if the going gets really bad. He however obviously has a bit of class about him and his trainer has had this to say about his chances  "We don’t want the ground to be too soft for Delegator. There was a lot of rain at the course on Thursday morning and the forecast looks unsettled. He proved that he liked racing over six furlongs when he won at York and he has been working very well.He is ready to go and I am looking forward to seeing him run another excellent race, providing the ground is suitable."
It will be interesting to see if Fallon can get a better tune out of Monsieur Chevalier (2nd 25/1) and what happens with Hooray as Sir Mark Presott doesnt usually run them unless there good enough.
The going is definitely going to be the key to this and Definightly is worth chancing ew on his first run back at 20/1 from what has been a decent draw all week on the straight track.

The Wokingham sees 28 runners declared for this annual cavalry charge over 6f and on first look we have to check out proven mudlarks such Fathsta (6th) and Cheveton (12th), the latter is 7lb better off with Hoof It for beating him a neck on soft at Haydock over 5f last September and gets the strong assistance of Silvestre De Sousa so he must have a chance of doing better than his 40/1 price suggests particularly as Hoof It is the 13/2 fav at the time of writing. Fathsta fairly scooted up at York last year in the Coral Sprint Trophy on Soft over 6f beating a competitive field and 33/1 surely wont be around tomorrow morning for this proven mudlark, interestingly De Sousa was on him that day but is now on Cheveton. I have a sneaking suspicion though that the trainer wasnt best pleased with the manner of that victory in that he may have wanted to keep something up his sleeve for the future. Still he is only 4lb higher here and he won so well in that he must have a chance of being placed and the only niggling doubt is his draw, although Tom Segal tells us we should not put too much faith in that for any race. However we saw on Tuesday in the Kings Stand that there is not much between these sprinters when Prohibit came out and won a Group 1 and this soft ground may tip the balance in favour of the two selections.
There are several top horses in the lineup but the two above should give you a run for your money at big prices.

10.35 am Saturday : Not as much rain overnight as I thought but still 7mm and Clerk says its very soft. Delegator is a non runner in the Golden Jubilee as thought and in the same race Definightly is down to 9/1 in some places. There has also been money for Fathsta in the Wokingham also I hadnt noticed before but the first 5 in the betting for that race have all only had 1 run each this season and all featured in the Blogs Master List.

Good luck with your selections whatever you do.