Newmarket Tips: Best Value Bets for ITV Racing Saturday September 28
By Matt Brocklebank
16:44 · FRI September 27, 2024
It's bet365 Cambridgeshire day at Newmarket on Saturday and our value-seeking expert is on hand with his selections for the puzzling handicap.
- Matt Brocklebank's Value Bet is designed to generate long-term profit by searching for overpriced horses in the feature weekend races and at the big Festivals in the UK and Ireland.
- Value Bet tips are initially available to logged-in readers through Sporting Life Plus, before the full column appears on the main Sporting Life website and App 15 minutes later.
- Following all Matt's selections to recommended odds/stakes since the start of 2024 would have produced 145.70pts in profit (254pts staked, ROI of 57.36%).
Value Bet tips: Saturday September 28
1pt win Skipper in 1.30 Haydock at 13/2 (BetVictor, Coral)
1pt win Paddy The Squire in 3.40 Newmarket at 28/1 (Betfred, bet365, Coral)
1pt win Empirestateofmind in 3.40 Newmarket at 50/1 (General)
Paddy has power-packed finish in him
Put yourself in the position of racing trader for a second and Saturday’s bet365 Cambridgeshire must be one of the hardest races to price up all year – and I'm including all the Cheltenham handicaps and Grand National in that thinking as well.
Thirty-odds runners (more NRs almost inevitable) over nine furlongs of the Rowley Mile represents an exceptional puzzle and it should come as no surprise we’ve seen a bunch of supposed shock winners down the years.
Throw in the very soft ground this weekend, plus an Emmet Mullins-trained horse who seems to be yo-yoing in the market, and it’s just one of those races I love to have a dart at with at least a couple of longshots.
I’ll kick off with the case for PADDY THE SQUIRE, who is lurking near the foot of the weights and will hopefully be fully effective in the conditions.
Here is a very well-bred horse with only eight lifetime starts to his name, arriving in excellent form and should see out the trip extremely well having been tried over as far as 12 furlongs at one point in the past.
The fact he’s trained in Dumfries and Galloway by Iain Jardine, who hasn’t exactly been cooking on gas lately it must be said, as well as having a bit of a breathing issue (three wind ops already), are no doubt contributing to his odds, but those slight negatives aside, he looks a largely progressive four-year-old who could be sitting on the run of his life come Saturday.
With form figures of 221223 since the first wind surgery last April, it’s fair to say Paddy The Squire’s overall strike-rate (just the one win to date) could easily read a good bit better as twice he’s missed out by just a short-head, including when nailed on the line by the reopposing Theoryofeverything at Hamilton two starts ago.
That was a fantastic effort from the Jardine horse as, on his first run for the best part of a year, he was last through the early stages, quickened towards the far rail to lead inside the final furlong before understandably looking to get tired, and was ultimately collared in the shadow of the post by one challenging out towards the centre of the track. It must have felt like a bit of a mugging for those who were on him that day.
After such a brave display on the back of a long time off, it was encouraging to see Paddy The Squire show no ill-effects as he ran to a similar level at Chester a fortnight ago, again having to make his move from towards the back and then done no favours by the winner in a late scramble for the line.
Fully 7lb better off with subsequent winner Theoryofeverything now, he’s going to love chasing a strong pace in this huge cavalry charge and the trip combined with the ground should be right up his street.
Looping back to his breeding, he’s a half-brother to the 105-rated New Kingdom as well as Cruyff Turn (reached a mark of 100 at his peak, still winning races) so should continue to improve with age and I reckon the layers have him all wrong at 25s and bigger.
Empirestate building up to something?
The other one to take a chance on is outsider EMPIRESTATEOFMIND for John and Sean Quinn.
He’s a six-year-old now and clearly not getting much sharper as time wears on, but the handicapper has given him a proper chance with a reduced mark of 90, having gone close behind Bopedro off 99 here early on in 2023.
He found life tricky off similar ratings thereafter but was placed off 98 at the Shergar Cup meeting last summer before his form tailed off a little towards the end of the season.
A winter breathing op and just two outings this time around suggests he’s not been the easiest to get right but there was a bit more promise in his last outing when beaten four lengths by La Trinidad in the Summer Cup at Thirsk.
The form of that race has worked out well – with James McHenry, Thunder Run, Cruyff Turn and Padishakh all franking it to some degree – and I just wonder if Empirestateofmind was still a fraction short of peak fitness.
He’s often take a run or two before really finding his straps and he’s done notably well in the September and October of his campaigns down the years, so a race like this might have been the target from some way out.
He’ll certainly cope well enough with the ground and he’s another drawn relatively high (23), so I’m hoping the recent trend continues and the stands’ side is once again the place to be on the Rowley Mile.
Don't miss Haydock hotpot
The quality two-year-old races at headquarters don’t interest me greatly but I wasn’t surprised to hear Oisin Murphy and Andrew Balding still have a very high opinion of Royal Playwright and he might be worth some sort of interest in the Juddmonte Royal Lodge Stakes.
He was outpaced and a touch outclassed late on by Field Of Gold in the Solario at Sandown last month but it’s still early days for him after what was quite a striking debut success at Salisbury in July.
There’s more to come from this choicely-bred son of Lope De Vega upped to a mile – I’d fully expect him to develop into a serious middle-distance horse next year – but the price is probably no more than fair and I’ll take a pull which instinctively feels like the right thing to do in a race of this nature containing plenty of unexposed, well-bred sorts.
There are a couple of races from Haydock aired on ITV too and the one I’m by far and away the most keen on is SKIPPER in the Sky Bet For The Fans Handicap.
Unraced at two, the son of (second-season sire) Calyx is out of a half-sister to Kinross so he’s bred to have a touch of class and he displayed no shortage of potential in three novice/maiden starts earlier this year.
The pick of those saw him miss out by just a neck to Victorious Street at Southwell, the pair of them 11 lengths clear of the rest including a subsequent Salisbury novice winner (Shamran) back in fourth.
Skipper was given an official mark of 92 on the back of that and duly broke his duck in a Chelmsford maiden last time, sent off the 4/11 favourite and looking well on the top at the line despite having to be stoked up on the turn in.
The thing with this horse is that it looks like they’re only just scraping the surface with him and I’m in no way surprised to see him topping the Timeform ratings here, including a ‘small p’ which signifies the expectation of further improvement to come.
Calyx is doing very well with his progeny on bad ground and, interestingly, one of his most prolific scorers to date is the Tom Dascombe-trained Nellie Leylax, who has won three Haydock handicaps in similar conditions during the past two seasons, including a couple over this distance and one off Skipper’s exact rating of 92.
This is not an easy race by any means as the penalised Rhoscolyn looked on good terms with himself at Goodwood earlier in the week, while Whiskey Pete is bound to cope with the ground, but if there’s one who could blow it apart it’s surely Skipper and I’d have him vying for favouritism to be honest.
Published at 1600 BST on 27/09/24
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