David Massey has an each-way trixie at Lingfield on Monday, starting with a horse who's been knocking on the door of late.
Kodiac Harbour has been knocking on the door over further in recent weeks, and is capable of ending a frustrating sequence dropped in trip.
He has a course record at 1m-1¼m when the going is described as standard of 1222, with the seconds coming on his last three starts when trading odds-on in the run over the longer trip. He’s looked home and hosed with a furlong to run on his last two starts here only to be run down late, and the return to a mile looks a positive, while he’s only gone up a total of 3lb for those efforts, each of which has represented a marginal improvement on the last.
There isn’t much pace on here, and that will suit his style of racing, whereas the likes of Freedom And Wheat, Buckingham and Giuseppe Cassioli would benefit from an end-to-end gallop.
Luke Morris has the job of ensuring he injects pace at just the right moment so he can get a jump on the chasing pack, while not giving them enough time to claw back the deficit.
Get Mer-ry 2.05 Lingfield
Merhoob has been running creditably, and his run over C&D on Saturday can be written off as he was badly hampered leaving the stalls. He went close when turned out quickly after Christmas last year, and the last two times Darragh Keenan has been jocked off for Adam Kirby, John Ryan’s gelding has won.
In fact, his record under Kirby on the all-weather is six starts and four wins, with the latest defeat coming after a lengthy break. Merhoob does most of his racing at a higher level, and is dropping into a class 4 contest for the first time since winning at Musselburgh in June 2018.
His AW record in this class after a recent run reads 112, and he looks poised to take advantage of this easier task.
Old Master - 3.35 Lingfield
Not many of these have shown signs that they want this trip, and stamina is a big question mark for Gold Standard, who looks too short as a result.
Jen’s Fella is obvious enough, but both Master Burbidge and Amanto have good course records and will stay. The worry with Master Burbidge is the form of the yard, but the old boy has been bucking that trend for a while now. Neil Mulholland doesn’t target the AW as much as he did a few years ago, and his strike-rate has fallen dramatically.
Since January 2019, he’s sent out just two winners from 79 runners, and is now a trainer to avoid as a rule with his runners on this surface. You can’t tell that to Master Burbidge, however, as he has won twice and been placed nine times from 11 AW runs in his career.
That record is even better at 2m, with lifetime form figures of 3212132232 brooking no argument about his prospects of making the frame here.
Amanto wasn’t best placed over 1½m on Saturday and that trip is too short, so he can be expected to bounce back if fully recovered from that effort. It’s interesting that he’s due to run again just two days later, having been given a rest of at least 10 days between runs in his career to date.
That begs questions of his ability to back up quickly, but it’s also worth noting that the only two times he’s been asked to race within a fortnight of a previous run, he’s won.
Posted at 1745 GMT on 21/12/2020
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