Thursday, June 18, 2009

Royal Ascot 2009 - Friday

Over the years the Friday card at Royal Ascot has proved something of a graveyard for me; this year, in an attempt to rectify this miserable situation, I'm going to limit myself to just one wager. That will have to be on the day's feature race, the Coronation Stakes, a Group 1 event for fillies run over the round mile.

Barry Hills' Ghanaati belied her 20/1 starting price when taking the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket in impressive style. A big filly, she is the market leader but this is no one horse race. The yard won the Jersey Stakes with Ouqba on Wednesday but their stats for the last fortnight show just two wins from the last thirty one attempts and on grounds of value alone I'm tempted to look elsewhere. French 1000 Guineas winner Elusive Wave is likely to throw down a stern challenge; on ratings her form is slightly better than that of Ghanaati and she has more racecourse experience but she will need to handle the preliminaries. Irish 1000 Guineas winner Again looked to have a hard race when collaring Mick Channon's Lahaleeb on heavy ground at the Curragh three and a half weeks ago - this may come a little too soon for both horses. I haven't totally given up on Rainbow View who looked unlucky in running in the Epsom Oaks after finishing fifth behind Ghanaati in the Guineas; that day connections blamed the fast ground for her disappointing performance. She will encounter similar ground tomorrow and the stable is out of form with just one winner from thirty seven runners in the last fortnight. French raider Reggane is difficult to weigh up but certainly worth a mention; she could easily prove the dark horse in the field and may be of interest to those looking for an each-way punt.

In a trappy looking event I'm going to side with the front-running Elusive Wave; she's priced up at 3/1 in a couple places this evening.

2 comments:

Noel Bell said...

I will follow you off the cliff with the French horse :-)

GeeDee said...

I've just bumped into Noel Bell at the bottom of the cliff - he mentioned something about a French horse, Elusive Wave... ;-)
Well, no excuses, that's another one to add to that ever-growing list 'ones I called wrong'. Ghanaati (2/1f) showed an impressive turn of foot two furlongs out to quickly put this contest to bed; the best horse won the race. Elusive Wave (4/1) was never going to win and didn't seem to apprecaite the stiff mile, losing two places near the line to eventually finish fourth.
Reggane (9/1) ran with plenty of credit ans stayed on to take second place in the final furlong.