Antepost betting isn't my strong point, so it's not something I do too often. With Royal Ascot around the corner, these are a few horses that I fancy to be tough to beat and still available at good prices.
Bow Echo 11/10 – St James' Palace Stakes (Tuesday, 16.20pm)
The 2000 Guineas winner should be winning this race if he's in the same form as his Newmarket success. This is a different track, and the ground will likely be much softer than the good to firm he was on last time, so that's probably the reason for him being above EVS.
I don't think this will be a walk in the park, as the 2000 Guineas runner-up turns up, and Talk Of New York was impressive in a Listed race at Sandown. However, my pick has already shown he has the edge over Gstaad, and the form of the latter horse is well below what's needed.
Wild Blossom 5/1 – Queen Mary Stakes (Wednesday, 14.30pm)
The juvenile races can often throw up some whacky and strange results. These horses are all unexposed and can easily improve over a short period of time, so it's hard to be too confident. However, I saw Wild Blossom run on her debut at Carlisle, and I was extremely impressed.
Wild Blossom won the same race that Venetian Sun won the year before, and that horse went on to become one of the leading horses in the UK as a two-year-old. Wild Blossom hails from the same yard, so it's interesting that Karl has sent her for that race, and the fact that she smoked a fairly solid field, she could be special.
Venetian Sun 2/1 – Commonwealth Cup (Friday, 15.05pm)
Based on what we've seen from the horses that are expected to lineup, I think Venetian Sun is as good a guarantee as you can get for a Royal Ascot race. She is a very quick filly who relished the return to sprinting last time out at Haydock, and on the back of that effort, I struggle to see which horse could beat her.
She was a very impressive horse last year in her juvenile campaign. They dared to be great and went for the 1000 Guineas, but she didn't see the trip out. They saw the light and reverted her to a sprinting trip, and she wiped the floor with a fairly useful field.
It shows how dominant she could be for years to come in the sprinting division, as the nearest horse in the antepost market is Albert Einstein, who is priced up at 10/1. You could also take the approach that the three-year-old sprinters are the greatest, and I think it's a mixture of Venetian Sun being dominant, and the rest being below average.
GambleAware