There’s no British Group One this weekend but Newbury’s Saturday card hosts the Group Three Hackwood Stakes, a six-furlong sprint likely to go off on quick summer ground.
So rare has that been this season that the value of the recent form book is questionable, and a couple of last season’s star two-year-olds might be overpriced on ground they’ll love.
The first is Buratino, last year’s Coventry Stakes winner, who has disappointed in all starts this season but is yet to get his conditions.
A few botched attempts at racing over a mile have seen him dropped back to sprinting, where he was very successful as a juvenile.
Even with excuses, though, his form this season has just not been good enough and, while tempting, I’m not going to bite at the generous 14/1 on offer.
I prefer the chances of Richard Hannon’s ILLUMINATE, who mixed it with the very best around last season and is another bona fide quick-ground performer.
She was a very good second to Lumiere, who last week ran away with a hot listed race at Newmarket, in Group One company as a two-year-old and also won the Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot.
This season she’s disappointed over a mile on seasonal debut in the 1000 Guineas, where despite the going officially ‘good’ despite there definitely being some cut in the ground.
Next time out it was good-to-soft ground behind Quiet Reflection and Kachy in the Group One Commonwealth Cup, where she ran creditably into fifth.
There’s no shame in losing to that bunch, and her trainer expects improvement for the better ground.
Of the remaining opposition, I don’t see the appeal of Charming Thought after what was a so-so return from injury at Salisbury, though the market has it right with the favourite The Tin Man, whose Group One form suggests he’s the class horse in the race.
He does have to bounce back from a disappointing run in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes and, now a four-year-old, has to give the selection lumps of weight given her three-year-old fillies’ allowance.
1pt win Illuminate @10/1, 15:35 Newbury, Saturday
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