Our columnist has her best bets for Saturday's action at Sandown Park.
It’s 6am on Friday morning and I’m already on my third brew (FYI it’s the brand based in the county I was born in, there are other brands, but why would you bother?). That means I’m now fully switched on and ready to preview the excellent card at Sandown on Saturday, whose highlight is the Coral-Eclipse featuring the Derby winner City Of Troy. That doesn’t look the most competitive race on the face of it, so let’s wind the clock back to the earlier races before we get to the biggie.
Sky Bet are offering money back as cash if you’re 2nd or 3rd in the Coral Charge at 1.50pm, and whilst I’d have taken on 7/4 favourite Live In The Dream anyway, there’s more incentive to do so with that offer.
Regular readers of this blog will hopefully have taken the advice to back Kerdos and Believing when they won their respective races at Haydock in May and June. Live In The Dream contested both and was well beaten in each. His main target this year is the Nunthorpe, the race he won in 2023, so that wasn’t a disaster, but you’d have liked to have seen more from last season’s Group One winner.
His main market rival on Saturday is Twilight Calls but his trainer Henry Candy is yet to celebrate a winner in 2024, so I’m going to side with the Jack Channon-trained Desperate Hero, with the stable operating at a healthy strike rate. Channon is yet to have a winner at Sandown since taking over from his dad in January of 2023, but Mick sent out plenty of winners at the track and a victory here would be a fine way to break his duck. This would also be his most prestigious winner if it goes to plan. The horse comes here on a roll and won’t mind any rain that falls at Sandown. He’s a 5/1 shot.
There are four places available in the Coral Challenge at 2.25pm. Perotto is Sky Bet’s 9/2 favourite after a cracking run in the Royal Hunt Cup which saw this livewire finish a close third. He’s only had two spins at Sandown and won both including this race last year. The rain that’s around won’t suit him though.
I’m a big believer in stable form and there are fewer stables in better nick than William Knight at present. He saddles Dual Identity in this and at 13/2 looks one to have on side with those four places on offer. He finished behind reopposing rivals Two Tempting and Classic over this course and distance on his most recent start, but the winner got first run on him and I think he can reverse those placings. 11/2 second favourite Classic is an interesting one but I’m happy to take him on.
At 3pm we have the Coral Distaff, a listed race for the three-year-old fillies. George Boughey and Billy Loughnane have already celebrated 46 winners together at an 18% strike rate. One of the highlights was the win of Soprano in the Sandringham Handicap at Royal Ascot. We had Harry Herbert with us on Sky Sports Racing before she ran, and he told us they were trying something new with the daughter of Starspangledbanner with the mile trip, and his hunch that it would suit paid off. So, she deservedly moves back up into Listed company here and is the highest rated in the field. She is growing up and gets on well with Billy, so I’m going for a repeat performance here. She’s the 15/8 favourite.
No prizes for saying City of Troy will be hard to beat in the Coral-Eclipse at 3.35pm but on what we saw at Epsom his price of 2/7 favourite is fully justified (no pun intended). Sometimes you must just watch a horse race and enjoy the quality, and all being well that’s what we’ll see from the Derby winner here. Naturally, this is a different test with the drop in trip from Epsom and facing his elders for the first time but the first three in the betting are all from the Classic generation and the older horses look to have work to do.
If you want an each-way shot, then you could follow trainer Brian Meehan, who seems to be saving his 2024 winners for the big races exclusively. On the face of it four winners from 60 runners this year doesn’t fill you with joy but when you consider two of those wins have come courtesy of Jayarebe in the Fielden Stakes and Hampton Court at Royal Ascot, another came in the Coventry with Rashabar and the other win came with a three year old called Monkey Island in a smart Newbury novice, he’s not doing too badly. He’s also seen Kathmandu finish runner up in the French 1000 Guineas. He’s a 14/1 shot, so providing all eight stand their ground looks a feasible each way selection.
The mile and a quarter Coral Racing Club Handicap is at 4.12pm and David Menuisier saddles Ashariba here. She’s an improving filly who looks fairly weighted after a win at Leicester last time out which saw the field well strung out on testing ground. Exaggerated distances on extreme ground aside, she’s on the up, and handles better ground than she experienced that day. She holds an entry in the Irish Oaks and whilst that’s beyond her, this isn’t.
My colleague “Sir” Robert Cooper is retiring at the end of the month, but he won’t be lost to the racecourse and may well be at Sandown to see Sweet Reward line up in the closing mile and a quarter handicap as part of the Old Stoic Racing Club. We’ll miss Bob’s quick wit on our screens, and some of my funniest memories in broadcasting have come with, and because of him.
There aren’t many people that can consistently make you cry with laughter, alongside speaking with authority on our sport, but Robert does. He’ll have more time to walk his dog, Norma in the future and maybe a career in music beckons after a flag sporting his face was flown during the Avril Lavine set at Glastonbury.
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