Our podcast panel discussed horses to follow in the coming weeks and months in an 'Autumn Watch' segment and here are four for your My Stable tracker.
I’ve gone for a leftfield Ballydoyle horse called FIGHTER. He is, as you would expect, beautifully bred. He's a colt by Frankel from the family of Trading Leather, who won an Irish Derby, and out of a Sindaar mare, so it's all stamina in that pedigree.
He had two runs in maidens towards the back end of last year, both times partnered by a 5lb claimer, and finished third in a Limerick maiden on his reappearance without doing an awful lot. He ran to a pretty middling figure that day, but last time out in a Curragh maiden, with blinkers on for the first time, with Ryan Moore on for the first time, he looked an entirely different proposition from the front, made all, and was going further and further clear in the straight.
Now he's got a mark of 90 on the back of that which to me looks really exploitable, and we've given him a Timeform rating of 90p, which I think is a bit conservative.
Graham Cunningham - ELLADONNA
I don't like delayed gratification. I like action now. This is autumn, now, isn't it? We can officially say it’s autumn, so look out for James Fanshawe’s ELLADONNA in the 4.50 Haydock on Thursday (September 5).
She’s a filly I’ve been waiting for, I've written her up twice, and she hasn't run. I wrote her up strongly for that good Fillies’ Handicap at Goodwood and she came out because of the ground. I thought she might win that Fillies’ Handicap at York but she didn't make the 48-hour cut, I assume because of the ground. But she runs at Haydock on Thursday in that 10-furlong Fillies’ Handicap and have a look at her.
She's had a hood on for her last two runs, she's won both, first at Nottingham cosily, then at Salisbury, where she did no more than the minimum, but she really quickened up well, edging a bit right in the hood. The form’s worked out a treat and I think the handicapper should have gone back and had a look at that race and put her up by more than the original 3lb.
Where are the Godolphin horses? It’s a question we're going to have to answer in the coming months. Then I think two high-profile ones I'm excited about are obviously Economics moving forward and Opera Singer is a filly I love - it’s interesting to see where they go with her.
But the one I want to follow from York it'd probably be THUNDER RUN, who, I think Karl Burke has finally unlocked. I think they've always thought this horse was really talented, won the Clipper Stakes at the York meeting, and I think he's capable of an awful lot better. He could be a Cambridgeshire horse, or something like that from that York run. I reckon they think he's pretty good.
The top horse I'm looking forward to seeing most next is CALANDAGAN on the back of what he did in the Juddmonte International.
I just don't think he's got the credit he deserves for running City Of Troy as close as what he did. Having given that horse a bit of a head start, and it's obviously a little bit up in the air as to where he'll definitely go, but I'd imagine, given he looked so good at Ascot, that the Champion Stakes looks the obvious target for him.
I'd have him as favourite over Economics at this stage, and the bookies aren't in agreement. So yeah, it's got to be Calandagan for me.
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