After a quiet couple of weeks of racing, the temperature gauge ramps up again with the Ebor Festival at York.
The four-day meeting is one of the summer’s highlights and promises to be quite a spectacle.
Here are the thoughts of our horse racing expert on some of the major races.
Juddmonte International
This has the potential to be an absolute cracker with a number of star names lining up.
For me, Japan is the best three-year-old we’ve seen this season and I think he’s a good thing for the St Leger, however, I’m not quite sure this 1m2f trip is what he wants and I’ll pass him off on that basis.
King Of Comedy is another who has been impressive this season and was only just touched off in the St James’s Palace at Royal Ascot so is clearly up to this level. He steps up in trip and is a sure-fire contender, but Crystal Ocean might just prove too good here.
The highest-rated racehorse in the world lost little in defeat to Enable in the King George, where he had to give the wonder mare three pounds. He’s versatile in terms of the trip too and I think he’ll simply have too much for his rivals. He looks a good bet at 11/10 with Grosvenorsport.com to notch up his fourth win of the season.
Yorkshire Oaks
What more do we need to say about Enable? She’s absolutely incredible and is the closest I’ve seen to unbeatable since Frankel.
The Arc is the obvious target and she must surely go there with an outstanding chance of a third victory in the race. She targets a second Yorkshire Oaks beforehand and it would be a huge surprise if she were beaten.
Magical is a top-class filly, but she’s been no match for her previously and I don’t see any reason for that to change here. Enable is no price at 1/3, but it would take a brave man to bet against her.
Nunthorpe Stakes
Another cracker on paper with two superstar sprinters taking each other on. When Battaash is good, he’s very good and he’s shown on a number of occasions, that he’s probably the fastest horse in the country.
However, he has also shown, most notably in this race twice, that he can boil over. York is a very noisy track and being a very highly-strung horse, it seems to affect him more than others. He’s a top-quality sprinter, but at just 2/1, I’m going to take him on.
Namely Ten Sovereigns, who based on his win in the July Cup, looks a proper sprinter. The son of No Nay Never was considered a serious 2000 Guineas contender after his win in the Middle Park at the back end of last season but didn’t stay the mile trip.
Connections then reverted him back to sprinting in the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot where he never really got into things and finished fourth.
His trainer Aidan O’Brien said he took a bit longer than expected to get his head back into sprinting and he showed huge improvement next time when winning the July Cup. The drop back to five furlongs is a slight concern, but O’Brien is a master and I expect him to win his third Nunthorpe at 7/4.
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