Racing tips: An easy lead looks on the card for Outbox

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There's some good action today, let me know what you fancy in the comments. Good luck!

Newbury 2:30

Sure enough, the only 3yo in the race, Zechariah, will be well fancied in this due to being more lightly raced than the rest and will be receiving weight all around due to the weight-for-allowance. However, is he good enough to win this? I'm not sure, especially at the forecasted early odds of around 13/8. He has some decent pieces of form with a second-placed effort at Royal Ascot, but I think he was mightily disappointing last time at Goodwood considering he was well fancied.

OUTBOX is a very consistent horse at this level and there is a strong chance that Hollie Doyle will be able to get an easy lead of things and dictate the race. Hollie is a superb jockey, and I think she is one of the best when riding from the front, as she often gets the fractions spot on. Outbox is a tough horse to pass when he gets the lead, as the likes of Logician found out last year when he managed to put him in his place in a Listed race at Newmarket. That version of Logician wasn't the same one who won the St Leger, but he was still a very good horse. I think Outbox's run behind Hukum where he fished runner-up in a Group 3 at York is one of the best pieces of form in this, if not a clear best. Hukum has since won a Group 1 and has previously won this race at Newbury the last two years, so it's a good level of form to compare.

I'd imagine it is between Outbox and Zechariah. The rest have questions to answer. Away He Goes looks better over slightly further and his recent form hasn't been encouraging. Universal Order could win this, but you don't know what you're going to get from him. He's very inconsistent and might be better suited to carrying large weights in handicaps. Andrew Balding's Silence Please probably doesn't need to find as much improvement as what her handicap mark suggests. She has run some good races in defeat and the form looks okay, it's a shame there are not more runners as she would be an interesting EW angle.

Newbury 3:35

It's quite frustrating to see POGO as the current favourite for this, as I was hoping people would continue to doubt him and his ability. He is such a lovely horse, who tries his heart out every time, and even though he does bump into progressive horses every now and again, he is a very consistent performer at this level, and I think he can land another win and continue his cracking season.

It really is baffling how it's taken connections so long to understand that he is a 7f horse and that is his trip. He can do well over a mile, but his gas tank empties towards the end. I actually think he could run over 6f on a very stiff track behind a good pace, but they haven't opted for that route. I think something like the July Cup or 6f Royal Ascot Group 1 would interest me in backing him EW, as he doesn't lack pace and he has excess stamina over that trip when the majority of others don't.

You know what you're going to get with Pogo, and that's a front-running ride where it looks like he'll be swallowed up, but he continues to battle back. His run at Glorious Goodwood where he finished third behind Sandrine and Kinross was a cracking effort. I think this race is a step down in class to last time, other than maybe Chindit who is a Group 2 performer. Chindit might be better over a mile and has to shoulder a penalty for his recent Group 2 success. Happy Romance would be of interest, but not over this trip in my opinion. She is surely better over shorter. The rest of the field has a ‘meh' feeling about it. You have a couple of 3yo's who are still relatively unexposed and come into this with a fighting chance but is their form really that strong?

Ripon 2:50

The big handicap of the day comes at Ripon in the shape of the Great St Wilfrid Handicap. I managed to tip up Justanotherbottle in this race last year at odds of 18/1, that horse attempts to retain his crown in this, but runs off a 13lb higher mark, so will have a tough task on his hands.

The one I have fallen on is an old favourite of many, SUMMERGHAND. I have taken a new approach to this and delved into the stats of previous winners in this race, and David O'Meara's horse come out on top with the draw the only thing going against him. He fits the bill in terms of previously running at the track (will come back to this), rated between 94-100, 5yo+, weighted between 8st 12lbs – 9st 1lbs and is running under a 25-day break. Obviously, stats don't always work out, but those trends I have mentioned have either produced 7 or 8 of the last 10 winners of this race (depending which ones you pick).

Though he doesn't have C&D form, he did finish 2nd in this race back in 2019. That run was from a low stall again (stall 5), so it does show he can run against the bias and run well. That runner-up run was off a handicap mark of 100, which is 2lbs higher than today's handicap mark, so based on that, he should be capable of running a very big race.

The recent form figures of this horse aren't appealing, but they are better than what the numbers suggest, plus they were in very tough handicaps like the York Dash and a Royal Ascot handicap. He raced in Meydan during the winter, and when you look back at his handicap mark this time last year, he was rated 107, so there's a reason why his mark has been on the slide and his form figures aren't gleaming like some of the others.

A couple others who were good on the recent trends were Fortamour and Misty Grey, so even though these are not tips, I'll probably have a couple of small ew bets on those as well and maybe chance my arm at a crazy combination tricast.

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