Summerghand looks the clear one to beat after his victory in the Stewards’ Cup at Goodwood last time out. But he’s normally seen at his best, when he’s got a huge pace to run at, behind a big field and Summerghand has previously underperformed in races of this nature.
The ground looks set to be atrocious tomorrow with the going already soft on Friday and more rain on the way. There are a few that will suffer with the conditions like this.
One that could put up a big run is Ventura Rebel who finished third behind Golden Horde on his penultimate start for Richard Fahey. He has a win on soft during his juvenile campaign, but I wasn’t a big fan of his last run when upped to 7f and he needs to show more here.
I like the Owen Burrows runner SHABAABY, who is going to relish the conditions. All of his career wins have come with soft in the going description and he’s a horse that massively needs to dig his toe in to see the best of him.
Shabaaby is lightly-raced for a five-year-old with just 10 career starts. He looked a classy juvenile, particularly when bolting up by a combined 11 lengths in two soft ground outings. He then put in a very respectable fourth in the Rockingham Stakes (Listed) on a faster surface at the end of his two-year-career.
Shabaaby had a very quiet three-year-old campaign and only raced once at four; arguably putting a career best in to beat Emblazoned over 6f on gd-sft. He opened this campaign with a strong comeback run behind Judicial to finish fourth in the Group 3 Chipchase Stakes on the all-weather. Shabaaby was entitled to come on for that but finished well-behind Watan next time out at Newbury.
That run again was on unsuitably quick ground and can be forgiven. Shabaaby remains unbeaten on soft and unexposed in gruelling going conditions at this level.
1pt win Shabaaby @8/1, 14:05 Newmarket, Saturday
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