Haydock Sprint Cup winner Twilight Son is arguably the class horse in this six-furlong Group Two at York.
That Group One success saddles him with a 5lb penalty which, also considering this is his first run of the season, is asking an awful lot.
The favourite is therefore Magical Memory, last season’s Stewards’ Cup winner, who’s never finished ahead of Twilight Son in three attempts but arrives race fit and in good form after a winning return in Group Three company at Newmarket.
A neck-second that day was Richard Hannon’s Tupi, who would also appear to have leading claims on that evidence but needs fast ground to be seen at his best.
There’s rain forecast ahead of the meeting and the going should deteriorate along with his chances.
Only beaten half a length in third in that Newmarket race was Matmu, but his best form consistently comes up short and he’s held by many of these, so I wouldn’t fancy his chances in such a competitive race.
Moviesta has a similar profile; he too often comes up short at this level to be of real interest and Danzeno is also hard to fancy given this is his reappearance and he appears held by a couple of these.
The one I like at a big price is Aidan O’Brien’s DICK WHITTINGTON, who was a Group One winner as a two-year-old and has the considerable talents of Ryan Moore on his back.
He just looks overpriced at 16/1 – which is mostly down to his disappointing three-year-old season where he only ran once, finishing eight lengths behind Muhaarar in the Greenham Stakes.
That was over a year ago and he’s only run once since, having been well beaten on his reappearance last month behind Onenightidreamed at Curragh.
That was much softer ground than he’ll get at York and he, like all of O’Brien’s horses, will have needed the run and should have improved.
He contested favouritism in that race and Moore chose him above a good horse in Cougar Mountain, so there are signs connections still hold him in high regard and the 16/1 looks well worth taking despite the obvious claims of Magical Memory.
0.75pt each-way Dick Whittington @16/1, 15:15 York, Wednesday (1/4 1,2,3 with Coral)
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