A typically strong renewal with Willie Mullins holding plenty of cards by launching a seven-pronged attack. His long-time favourite Stratum has been dethroned in the last 12 hours with plenty of support for Aiden O’Brien’s St. Leger third Southern France.
I like this colt, but he is now terribly short in the betting and there is some doubt over the trip as he did not stay particularly well in the Leger and three-year-olds also have a terrible record in this.
I really like the chances of HERE AND NOW, who is beautifully bred, by Dansili and out of an Oaks winner. He debuted as a three-year-old last year, which included a victory over long-distance specialist Stradivarious and his form this year has got better with each run and remains lightly-raced. Here And Now’s penultimate start saw him demolish a strong-handicap field at York for which he received a nine pound rise.
He then followed that up with a very strong run in a tactical Listed race at Chester. He finished a close fourth to 114-rated Duretto, but was not seen to best effect over that track and trip.
The strongly run pace of the Cesarewitch should suit this strong travelling type and this jockey-trainer combination could not be in better form with two winners at Newmarket on Friday.
I think Here And Now has been overlooked at odds of 25/1 given his yard have spoken of Melbourne Cup aspirations next season. If he’s that good, then he could still be better than his mark and he is more unexposed than most.
It’s hard not to back one of the Willie Mullins’ contingent and LOW SUN could be the pick of his lot with Seamie Heffernan a big plus. He has a nice racing weight at 9st 2lbs and remains unexposed as a flat horse with this being just his sixth start.
He won a good handicap from Laws Of Spin back in June over rattling-fast ground and then went on to win very comfortably over 2m 6f in a handicap hurdle on his next start. Low Sun’s last run was over an inadequate trip of 1m 4f with the cheekpieces off and he wasn’t given a competitive ride.
The reality is that Low Sun had to run a second flat race this season to qualify for this so that would have been purely a prep run for this and he is bound to improve over this longer trip.
0.75pts each-way Low Sun @9/1, (8 places, 1/5 odds with William Hill)
0.75pts each-way Here And Now @25/1, 15:40 Newmarket, Saturday (7 places, 1/5 odds with Paddy Power)
Leave a comment