The Lion In Winter put in a stone-cold performance in the Epsom Derby, finishing tailed off.
He seemed more relaxed than he did when running in the Dante at York last month, but he lost the race from being in a poor position and not staying the trip. He does have plenty of speed, like we saw in his juvenile season, but his pedigree suggested he would stay the trip. Sadly, that wasn't meant to be.
The race was a bit of a farce. If you weren't up with the pace, you have no chance. The jockeys let one of the guaranteed stayers get an easy lead, and the winner did what he had to do. In hindsight, the Chester Derby Trial was the one to follow. The runner-up in that race was behind Lambourn in the Derby as well.
Iresine 7/4 (2pt) – Longchamp 3.25
I'm writing this before the odds have been compiled, so I will be hoping that Iresine is at decent odds.
I think punters and bookmakers will latch onto Goliath after his fantastic performance at Royal Ascot last year, but I don't think you should look into that too much. If that is the case, we will get a good price on Iresine.
I'll quickly touch on Goliath, as he is the horse with the best performance. He will likely be held up, which won't suit him when dropping back to 10f. He was very good on very fast ground over 12f, so this is a totally different scenario. He looks best over 12f, and even though he does handle bad ground, does he handle it as well as fast? I don't think so.
On the other hand, Iresine seems extremely comfortable on testing ground, and this is a distance that suits him. Similar to Goliath, he is a winner over further, but his run at Champions Day lingers in my mind as his best run. He was fourth of eleven at Ascot, in the race won by Anmaat. On that day, he didn't get a clear run, so the fact that he finished as close as he did deserves plenty of respect.
Statuario 3/1 (1pt) – Perth 3.57
Today, the big race at Perth is the Perth Gold Cup, which is a very interesting contest.
I think you can give a chance to the majority of the runners, but I decided to go for Statuario, who hails from the Mickey Bowen stable. This horse is making his stable debut for Mickey Bowen, but it doesn't mean too much as he was with Peter & Michael Bowen before. I think it's a positive sign that Sean Bowen has decided to ride Statuario over the two Gordon Elliott runners. Sean would've had the chance to ride either of the Elliott horses, as he is the go-to guy when the Irish trainer sends runners across.
Statuario was second to a well-handicapped horse over today's course and distance last time out, and was ahead of a couple of horses who are in today's race. Towards the bottom of the weights, and a repeat performance likely being good enough to win this, he got my vote.
GambleAware