It’s been a really good week with Richard Pankhurst’s 14/1 success at Haydock followed up by a 4/1 win for Seventh Heaven in the Yorkshire Oaks and the brilliant Mecca’s Angel returning a big bet at 9/2 in the Nunthorpe.
York’s Ebor meet is always one of my favourites but it has to end we hope to squeeze a winner or two out of Saturday’s closing card.
The feature race is the Ebor Handicap, which I couldn’t tip to save my life, so I’m looking for value from the big two-year-olds race, the Group-Two Gimcrack Stakes.
There’s rain forecast for Saturday but at the worst it’ll be good-to-soft, and Friday’s times were all so fast it’d be dangerous to overthink the potential impact of the weather.
York is a flat, fast track and this is a six-furlong sprint so it’s all about speed.
This looks a viciously-competitive renewal with the top four in the market all with the potential to be top-notchers and runaway Royal Ascot winner Ardad as big as 14/1.
Ardad now has a blemish on his record after finishing last in the July Stakes won by Mehmas, with today’s opponent Intelligence Cross in second.
It’s hard to fancy him over that opponent and even harder to see him beating the favourite, Blue Point, who recently beat Intelligence Cross at Goodwood, going down narrowly to Coventry Stakes second Mehmas.
That was Blue Point’s third start and he’s done nothing wrong in his short career, running a blinder in all of them, so he’s a favourite with sound credentials.
William Haggas, who today saddles the unbeaten Mubtasim, won this race last year with Ajaya and has a fantastic record at York, his local track.
Mubtasim is very unexposed at this grade but won both starts on quick ground in facile fashion, and at 5/1 this morning with Betfair he might be good value.
Mokarris recently won a Listed contest at Newbury but ran a stinker in the Coventry Stakes – which was on far softer ground than at York today – so has an awful lot to do on the collateral form with Intelligence Cross and Blue Point.
At the same price as Mubtasim, I can’t have Mokarris for that reason as I’d prefer to back the blemish-free profile.
I can’t have Intelligence Cross either as he was beaten too easily at Goodwood by Blue Point, who I think has more right to improve, so 9/1 doesn’t tempt me despite his trainer Aidan O’Brien being the master of improving two-year-olds through the season.
I’m not too keen on the rest in opposition either, so it’s between Blue Point and MUBTASIM and I’m siding with the latter for both value grounds and his sprinting pedigree.
By Arcano, who won the Group One Prix Morny and Group Two July Stakes as a two-year-old, who is himself by all-time-great sprinter Oasis Dream, a July Cup and Nunthorpe winner, he’s from a family that excels at these distances and as juveniles.
With very little against him, he looks the value bet.
1pt win Mubtasim @5/1, 15:25 York, Saturday (Betfair)
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