Friday’s Racing Tips – Liberalised can stamp her authority at Haydock

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Defence Minister returned a winning selection for the thread on Thursday, repaying favourite backers with a comfortable enough victory in the end. It took a while for James Doyle to get him organised, but once he did it was game over.

Both of Rizzel's horses weren't great, which meant it wasn't a profitable day on the whole. Poetic Jack was keen for quite a while in the first half of the race but ran well in defeat given the circumstances and the strange drift from the morning. Mercury Day wasn't exactly given a convincing ride by Jim Crowley who didn't look to be too interested. His riding action looked weak and even his couple uses of the whip suggest he wasn't too bothered. With a more vigorous ride, I think a place was there for the taking, but it's not the end of the world.

Cairnzy's Tips

Liberalised 5/2 – Haydock 2.35

Despite my initial surprise that my selection Liberalised was not marked up as favourite for this contest, I thought the 5/2 odds available at the time of writing appeared to offer good value against this field, in my opinion.

I'm actually looking forward to this Class 2 contest, and there are plenty of powerhouse trainers here, playing their hands in the shape of some interesting two-year-olds. I was particularly interested in First Instinct for William Haggas and Tom Marquand. I didn't tip the horse up on debut on the thread, however, I did have a small punt on it and I was impressed with how she went about her business at Nottingham that day.

While form is important, it's not everything in this game. However, in the case of my selection, Liberalised, I can't ignore the form which in my opinion, is head and shoulders above anything else on offer. Trained by Karl Burke, Liberalised was a comfortable winner on debut at Hamilton beating home Craig Lidsters Selection by 1L. Selection boosted the form of my selections debut run by winning next time out at Pontefract.

Connections wasted no time with Liberalised as she was thrown into the deep end in her following two outings, contesting in a Group 2 at Newmarket which saw her finish eighth of twelve, then in her most recent outing which was a Group 3 at Newmarket which saw her finish fifth of seven runners.

I don't think she was disgraced in either of those contests despite the finishing position not looking too appealing on paper. She finished just under 4L of the eventual winner Arabian Dusk and finished even closer to some nice types in the shape of Aiden O'Brien's Heavens Gate and Charlie Appleby's Mountain Breeze who are both rated 102. My selection's most recent outing in Group company was a similar story, she was well beaten by the eventual winner Lake Victoria but still finished close to some other nice types to suggest she's more than capable of winning in this sort of grade.

My selection drops down in grade and carries a penalty but she has valuable race experience on her side which is more you can say about the rest. I think she could be hard to beat with more improvement expected after only three runs so far in her career.

Awaal 3/1 – Ascot 4:45

Before I even talk about my selection, if Classic wins this contest after being a losing selection for me on the thread three times, I will be pulling my hair out! It's happened to me on too many occasions recently, and I wouldn't rule it out happening again.

The horse I like here is Awaal for trainers Simon and Ed Crisford. I was a massive fan of this horse last season and despite not winning as much as I thought he would have, he still ran some belter races in some valuable races against quality opposition.

My selection has only been seen the once this term when finishing a disappointing seventh at Newmarket in the Bunbury Cup. I missed that race live but wanted to watch a replay of the race to see how Awaal fared that day. After catching a quick replay, I thought Awaal did well to finish as close as he did as the main action was all down the near side while he did best of those towards the far side rail.

If you assume Awaal needed the run and should come on for it, then going of last seasons form he is the one to beat with his placed efforts in last seaons Bunbury Cup, Hunt Cup and The Lincoln. My selection is versatile ground wise and looks sure to run a big race of a 2lb lower mark with William Buick booked for the ride.

Rizzel's Tips

Look Back Smiling 12/1 EW – Ascot 4.10

In the last 24 hours, we've had some pretty horrible weather across the UK, with plenty of rain and wind. Ascot has felt the brunt of that and the ground has turned to soft and the Berkshire track is expecting further rain, so it's going to be a real stamina test, and I think we're going to see plenty of non-runners yet again.

Back over 7f and on a testing surface, I thought that Look Back Smiling was worth a shot in this very odd Class 3 Classified race. I'm not sure why this type of race is on a card like today, as it seems pretty out of place. Look Back Smiling hasn't been screwed by the race with the weights and ratings as he is towards the top of the ratings allowed in the race, but having Brandon Wilkie on board is a good move in my opinion as it means that my selection is running from the bottom of the weights, which is going to be advantageous in treacherous conditions.

Look Back Smiling definitely seems more at home on soft ground, his record would suggest that. He has five wins to his name, three of those have come on soft or heavy ground, the other two were on the all-weather and on good to firm very early into his career. This year he has been very in and out of form. He started the year off nicely with a win at Doncaster over a mile on soft ground, then didn't quite follow that up, but then ran a decent race in a Class 2 at Leicester and again in a Class 2 at Thirsk. He seems versatile between 7f and 8f, but I get the feeling that soft ground on a stiff track over 7f could be the best combination for him.

Gemma Tutty is 1/2 at the track in her training career with the defeat seeing her horse finish in second place, so it's a good indicator that a big run is on the cards for Look Back Smiling given she doesn't send many runners to the track. It's her sole runner of the day and the same can be said about Brandon Wilkie who has a good strike rate when riding for Gemma (2/7 with a further two as runner-up).

Knight Templar 10/3 – Haydock 3.45

It's quite incredible that Haydock hasn't received the full wrath of the weather as it seems that it's always heavy ground up at Haydock, but today it's good to soft and they seem to have escaped any overnight rain, according to the forecast. I think connections of Knight Templar will be quite gutted that further rain hasn't fallen as he looked in love with the soft ground at Ffos Las last time out.

Despite not getting the bottomless ground, I will still have a play on Knight Templar. He has only managed to win once in his career of eight runs so far, but he was with Sir Mark Prescott for seven of those runs and you can write off his 2-year-old runs as Sir Mark loves to campaign his juveniles with their 3-year-old season at the forefront, thus running them over trips far too short, either to gain the experience for when they are three, or to get them a lovely low handicap mark. For whatever reason, Sir Mark didn't manage to get the best out of this gelding, with two runner-up finishes this year, alongside a woeful run on the all-weather which must've been the last straw for connections as they let got rid of him and Robert Stephens picked him up. Robert unlocked the potential with this horse when placing him on the soft ground at Ffos Las when winning on his first start for the yard. The form looks reasonable as the runner-up managed to win twice after and even though he didn't frank the form again on Wednesday, he was far too keen to do himself justice up in trip, so I think the form is still decent.

Today, they send Knight Templar over 2f more than his run last time out and based on how well he finished, it can only be a positive as he only just managed to get up in time at Ffos Las. He is still unexposed as a stayer and is only a 3-year-old, so I think the 4lb higher mark isn't overwhelming for him, the bigger issue is the better quality of horses he is racing against today, but Robert Stephens must be confident as coming to Haydock isn't something he does all too often, with just one runner at this track on the flat since he's been training, and that horse finished second, which actually came in this exact race in 2022. His horse that year was beaten by a well-handicapped horse who went on to improve from 76 rated to 100 in the space of 12 months after that race, so it's a good indicator of what to expect from Knight Templar today.

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