Our man looks ahead to Friday's ITV Racing action from Sandown Park.
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Value Bet tips: Friday April 26
1pt win Blue Lemons in 1.50 Sandown at 14/1 (General)
1pt win Flight Plan in 3.00 Sandown at 8/1 (General)
The initial Guineas pointers didn’t produce much to write home about, with all due respect to the winners, but the Derby trials begin in earnest at Sandown on Friday and there’s plenty to be gleaned from such races as the Epsom protagonists have always had a run or two before early-June.
This Sandown card was abandoned due to waterlogging 12 months ago but the bet365 Classic Trial was won by subsequent Irish Derby winner Westover the previous year, while Alenquer beat subsequent Derby hero Adayar – with Yibir and Lone Eagle third and fourth for good measure – in 2021, so it’s a race to take seriously and one that Charlie Appleby has reportedly had in mind for Arabian Crown for some time.
I’m a fan of this Dubawi colt, who was brought along steadily as a two-year-old and picked up experience of this track on his first two visits to the racecourse – winning a maiden at the second time of asking before adding Listed (Salisbury) and Group 3 (Newmarket) victories to his name later in the year.
The five and a half-length Zetland Stakes second Gasper De Lemos has let his form down to some degree with a tame run in the Feilden Stakes at Newmarket last week but the third, Dallas Star, did come out and win the Ballysax at a big price, so there are mixed messages at this stage.
I can resist Arabian Crown as he’s a very short price given some of the promising rivals in opposition, not least the Owen Burrows-trained War Rooms, who looks a potential improver now stepped up to middle-distances having raced twice at two – both over seven furlongs.
I’ve a lot of time for Macduff too, especially as he was only beaten a couple of lengths by Derby fancy Ghostwriter in the Royal Lodge when last seen in September, but I’d rather have a bet in the Group 2 bet365 Mile where Lord North and Nostrum are both quite opposable on the face of it.
The former is getting a bit long in the tooth, while Sir Michael Stoute’s Nostrum has a major question mark hanging over him given how he ended his three-year-old campaign. Poker Face and a race-fit Charyn are respected rivals but the bet has to be FLIGHT PLAN for trainer Karl Burke, who has started the year in superb form (22% strike-rate over the past fortnight).
Flight Plan came up three-quarters of a length short behind Poker Face in a Listed race at Pontefract last July but improved on that form when third over nine furlongs at York before signing off with a career-best Group 2 victory at Leopardstown over Irish Champions Weekend.
I loved how Danny Tudhope took the bull by the horns on him that day and, with so little pace in Friday’s race, it looks another ideal opportunity to put his prominent style to great use, on a track we know tends to favour those on the sharp end over this sort of distance.
Sticking with the in-form trainer angle, Richard Hannon’s BLUE LEMONS looks worth an interest at a big price in the bet365 Esher Cup Handicap.
He got into a prolonged scrimmaging with Aidan O’Brien’s Capulet and was squeezed for room on his seasonal return at Chelmsford earlier this month, in the end doing remarkably well to box and finish as close as he did after the incident just over a furlong from the finish.
That race was won by Richard Hughes’ Bracken’s Laugh, who Blue Lemons finished just half a length behind when third in the Haynes, Hanson & Clark at Newbury in September, and he made most of the running in soft conditions on that occasion.
He’s been nudged up in the weights to a mark of 98 following the luckless comeback run but Hannon has enlisted Joe Leavy to take off a handy 5lb and I’d be really sweet on this horse off his former mark of 93.
Leavy doesn’t have much Sandown experience but he did finish third on his only previous ride here and I’ll take my chances given Blue Lemons is among the outsiders of the field.
Published at 1500 BST on 25/04/24
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