Aidan O’Brien’s English and Irish Derby second Idaho is the obvious form pick for the Group Two Great Voltigeur Stakes over 12 furlongs on York’s Wednesday card.
He’s priced up like a sure thing as the odds-on favourite but such profiles so often deceive.
Given he rode him on his last start, it’s interesting Ryan Moore in his Betfair column stated this race is more open than the betting suggests, so I think he’s there to be taken on.
Across The Stars was a hugely frustrating winner for us at Royal Ascot after we put him up at a big price to win the Derby, but that Group Two success doesn’t look the strongest form and I’m not sure he’s the right horse to go to war with.
He is unexposed on good ground but the fact remains his best is with soft in the going description and he has a 3lb penalty in this, so I’m passing.
The horse I like is IMPERIAL AVIATOR for Roger Charlton, who was supplemented for the French Derby and finished one but last.
It poured with rain before that race and the ground ended up being testing, so it might be wise to put a line through the race and focus on the promise of his previous two starts.
He beat recent Goodwood winner Ulysses in his maiden at Leicester earlier in the year and then bolted up in handicap company at Newbury, a flat track like York.
That was on good ground and a flat track and, if York’s good-to-firm going remains, he might have his ideal conditions.
His sire Paco Boy, who also sired leading miler Galileo Gold, won a Lockinge and Queen Anne on quick ground so there’s every reason to believe that to be the case.
The French defeat has pushed his price out to 11/1 and I reckon that’s a big price in a race as open as this, so he looks the value.
1pt win Imperial Aviator @11/1, 15:05 York, Wednesday
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