Tuco Salamanca definitely would have gone close if he hadn't been given an awful ride by Shane Foley.
I understand some horses like to be held up, but Shane took that to the extreme. He held up our selection in last place, and the horse was on the bridle when trying to go through the congested group, but unfortunately, not a lot of gaps opened up. The horse was placed, but it could have been a winner.
Whistlejacket is now a horse I'll never touch again. I've not touched him in a while, but that performance cemented that he isn't good at all. I don't think he'll be at Aidan's yard for much longer, as he has regressed massively.
Tarima ran quite well on the back of a little break. The winner got an easy time of things on the front and made the most of it. I wouldn't have picked the winner if you had given me all week to pick a winner of the race, as I didn't really rate her form.
Day Of Grace 3/1 (1pt) – Thirsk 4.50
William Haggas runners in Yorkshire are always going to be popular in the market. He has a tremendous record when sending his horses to tracks like this, so even if his horse doesn't have the strongest form, they're going to be short in the market.
Day Of Grace doesn't have great form, and you are basically backing her on the fact that she is trained by William Haggas and has a superb pedigree. Sunderland holding Inc, the owners of Day Of Grace, have had some excellent horses in the last ten years. That has allowed them to breed from great broodmares, Sea Of Grace being of them, the mother of Day Of Grace. They have bred from this mare four times, but have sold the foal, and the only one they decided to keep has been Day Of Grace, which makes you think that they saw something in her that they really liked.
Her pedigree points everything towards her wanting soft ground. The Dam was brilliant on soft ground, and she is by Night Of Thunder, who continues to excel as one of the best new sires. His progeny do very well on testing ground, so the rain which is expected to fall in the early hours at Thirsk should turn the surface quite soft at the very least. With the track being like that, William Haggas' horse must have a superb chance and will be expected to showcase some of her true talents.
William Haggas has a 26% SR at this track since he took out his training licence. These numbers can look even better if you change that to in the last five seasons, and if you change the criteria to his three-year-old runners at the track. At the time of writing, 3/1 is the current odds, and I think that's still short on the form we've seen, but it's a Haggas horse.
GambleAware