Martin Dixon of the Horse Watchers provides his insight on the ownership group's upcoming runners, including a couple starting out for the team.
Upcoming runners
Intervention (18:55 Wolverhampton, Saturday)
He runs in the feature race on the card at Wolverhampton. He's drawn in stall 1 which is good and Harry Davies takes the ride - he's won on him three times from five rides.
He was drawn out wide and ended up going too fast in front at Lingfield last time so you can forgive that run easily. He's got a really good record around Wolverhampton and he's on a competitive mark if it all came together for him. He'll be ridden forward, but because he's on the inside this time he'll hopefully be able to find his rhythm, whereas last time he had to work to get across and was then lit up.
It's a good race and a higher grade than he needs to run in, so we'd be hoping he runs well but couldn't be confident. He's got a good draw and the jockey gets a good tune out of him.
Royal Zabeel (16:10 Newcastle, Saturday)
It looks a competitive race with Enola Grey, who has been knocking on the door, and Golden Strike in particular looking to have obvious chances. Rogue Encore, who has won his last two, is another, so it's not an easy starting point for Royal Zabeel.
But he does everything right at home and his work has improved steadily, and his last couple of bits of work have been good enough to think he can be competitive off his mark. He's still quite an inexperienced horse and is going up against hardened handicappers and plenty of in-form horses, but we'd be optimistic of a positive start.
Mixed emotions for Penzance after Chelmsford stalls drama
Penzance
Drama in the finale - it's a void race at Chelmsford with the the tractor unable to remove the starting stalls from the track pic.twitter.com/dag0oKcet5
— Racing TV (@RacingTV) November 9, 2024
On the one hand it was frustrating at Chelmsford [in the void race] because he was going really strongly and turning in we felt like he was going to quicken up and go away.
Ali [Rawlinson, jockey] thinks it's quite important to go left-handed, he felt like he was happier than he was going right-handed around Kempton, and he gave him the feel of a horse who was right back to his best.
Obviously it was frustrating but also it was a relief everyone came out of it unscathed as it could have been a nasty incident.
Penzance gave Ali a really good feel through the race and he felt like he had plenty of horse underneath him when he turned in. He's likely to go to Newcastle on 6th December and I'd like to think he'll go there with a big chance - he's got a good record there.
High hopes for Heathen after winning return
Heathen
It was brilliant to see Heathen back again, winning at Southwell, and he looked better than ever how he went through the race. The key will be to try keeping him fresh between his races this winter - he wants four to six weeks between his runs - so we'll space out his runs and hopefully along the way we can win some of the nicer all-weather staying races.
I think he'll prove fully effective at two miles if we want to try it, but we also have the option of going back to a mile and a half - he's pretty versatile. He's a horse with a lot of ability if he can hold his form better.
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