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Ascot Tips for Saturday: Best value bets for fifth and final day of the Royal meeting
Royal Ascot draws to a close on Saturday and our expert has three big-priced runners to consider.
- The 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.
- Following all of Matt’s tips to advertised stakes/odds since he took over from Ben Linfoot in June 2020 would have produced over 130pts profit, while he's over 38pts up for the year.
Value Bet tips: Saturday, June 24
1pt win Quar Shamar in 3.05 Royal Ascot at 14/1 (William Hill, bet365)
1pt e.w. Juan Les Pins in 5.00 Royal Ascot at 25/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair, bet65 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt win Laafi in 5.35 Royal Ascot at 20/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair, bet365)
Penalised runner shouldn't be overlooked
A nine-day turnaround wouldn’t traditionally be what you’d look for heading into a race like Saturday’s Wokingham Stakes but JUAN LES PINS’ Nottingham victory last Thursday secured him the 5lb penalty needed to make the cut for the big betting race on the final day of Royal Ascot 2023.
He'd have missed the cut without it and, not only that, he's due to be bumped up to a mark of 97 in future, such was the impressive nature of last week’s success, so he's officially 1lb well-in effectively running here off 96.
The revised figure does still require another career-best from the six-year-old, but he was one of the most progressive sprinters of 2022 and looks to have clicked into gear again at just the right time after two quieter runs on softer ground at Newmarket earlier in the season.
Those efforts also coincided with a rare poor run of form for the Mick Appleby stable in general so I wouldn’t be reading too much into it, and if you go back to this horse’s final run last year he was a shade unlucky not to go very close from a perch of 92 in the Ayr Gold Cup, so it's not like he hasn’t threatened to win a proper heritage handicap.
Well-backed at Nottingham, he missed a beat at the start and took a few strides to get organised but he stealthily made up ground from off the pace without being asked anything too serious, before ultimately reeling in – and brushing aside - the strong-travelling filly Another Romance, who was obviously well-fancied and had effectively got first run.
Juan Les Pins passed the post with loads in hand, almost eased down on in the end, and didn’t look to have a hard race at all which bodes well for the swift return to action, and it’s something we’ve seen from this horse in the past anyway as he won in September 2020 after 13 days off and completed a summer hat-trick last year with just eight days between the first two legs.
So he undoubtedly thrives on a busy schedule, has a high draw here in 23 not too far from the most obvious pace-setters in Duca Di Como (14), Mr Wagyu (18) and First Folio (19), and his yard has blatantly turned a corner in recent days, featuring a big-priced winner in the Windsor Castle Stakes here on Wednesday and another winner at Chelmsford on Thursday.
Harrington to hit the target again?
The rest of the Saturday card looks decidedly tricky. I was hoping Jane Chapple-Hyam’s Quatre Bras might be missed in the market for the Chesham Stakes as he was the one I took from the deep-looking Yarmouth novice won by Lightning Leo at the start of the month.
However, he’s basically the same price as the reopposing winner, and the runner-up Sayedaty Sadaty, so I’ll resist the temptation to get drawn into a bet in the juvenile races this week.
I’ve failed to find anything that looks over-priced in either the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes or the Hardwicke Stakes, but Covey must be taken on in the Jersey.
He had a pretty easy time of things out in front when defying a handicap mark of 90 in Haydock’s Silver Bowl late last month and takes on much classier rivals back over the shorter trip on this occasion.
Enfjaar looks a quality animal in the making, but the Irish form could hold the key to this with The Antarctic up in trip after winning the Group 3 Lacken Stakes under a penalty and Jessica Harrington’s QUAR SHAMAR back down in distance following a fine effort in the Irish 2,000 Guineas.
The latter looks the value call, with the Curragh form working out exceptionally well as winner Paddington followed up in the St James’s Palace and the fourth Charyn was third in the same race here on Tuesday.
Quar Shamar, down the field on bad ground on his sole start at two, showed a sparkling turn of foot to win a Dundalk maiden on his seasonal return in mid-April, a race that’s produced three subsequent winners.
Drawn one in the Guineas, the son of Shamardal travelled sweetly on the inside rail but got a bit trapped behind Hi Royal and the eventual winner, before not quite seeing it out as well as Cairo, Charyn and Galeron who came over the top late on.
Quar Shamar should appreciate this relative test of speed on that evidence and his first run on genuinely fast ground may also spark a chunk of improvement. The fact he’s already 3lb superior to Covey on Timeform ratings highlights the notion his odds look plain wrong.
Another Haggas three-year-old can strike
The final handicap of the meeting is the Golden Gates Stakes and the complexion of the race changed on Friday morning when Ziryab – initially the first reserve – was granted a run after Charlie Appleby’s First Sight was declared a non-runner.
Ziryab is very progressive son of Kingman who looked to be crying out for this 10-furlong trip when opening his account at the third time of asking in a one-mile Leicester novice, form that has been franked by the second Theatre Honours and fifth Merry Minister who both won on their next starts.
I’d make him the most likely winner ahead of Knockbrex and Canute but they’re not the only unexposed runners in the field and surely LAAFI shouldn’t be such a big price.
He ran with promise on his seasonal return in the Lingfield Derby Trial last month, despite trainer William Haggas suggesting beforehand that he hadn’t been showing a great deal of spark at home.
A few of Haggas’s were running a bit below-par at the time but the yard has turned a corner in recent weeks and this horse comes here nice and fresh after 42 days away, with a tongue-tie fitted for the first time (Haggas 25/120 at 20% first-time tongue-tie).
Successfully conceding 9lb to Ziryab won’t be easy but Laafi has made serious improvement with every visit to the racecourse so far and the son of Cloth Of Stars could be ideally suited by this first attempt at a mile and a quarter on fast ground.
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Published at 1500 BST on 23/06/23
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