Tom Marquand made a pig's ear out of the ride on Venetian Lion, and the best horse in the race didn't win.
You could tell that Marquand was going to struggle for room for many furlongs, and if I could see it, then why couldn't he? The best handicapped horse in the race was Venetian Lion, but he had no chance based on that ride.
Resemblance was given an equally bad ride by Hector Crouch; the ride was very similar to Venetian Lion's ride. I have a little more sympathy for Hector, as the winner was pulling away at the finish, so I don't think Resemblance would have won, but he still had a shocker.
Desperate Dan was very desperate. He came out of the stalls very slowly, like he did last time at Haydock and gave himself no chance of winning. He also looked extremely flat and didn't pick up at all when the jockey asked him.
Highwayman 3/1 – Ascot 1.30
Unless I'm missing something, I thought Highwayman was the obvious selection in this race.
The older horses do tend to burn my fingers when I back against them with a three-year-old, but Highwayman is evidently a very smart horse. He won the St Leger 35 days ago, and he wasn't stopping at the line. We see Leger horses go on to become very talented stayers, and I think Highwayman can cement himself as one of the key players in the division for a few years.
Gregory is the closest in the market, but he hasn't kicked on to the heights some of us thought he could achieve. He's had a few issues and has only raced twice this year, but at the age of six, and having a career-high RPR of 117, I think he has a lot to fend off Highwayman. My selection recorded an RPR of 116 at Doncaster, and considering he is in receipt of 7lbs from the older horses, these older horses are going to need to run a career best by quite a big margin if my fancy runs to form and doesn't improve further.
I'd rate Caballo De Mar as the main threat, as he is a multiple Group 1-winning horse. It pains me to say that he is a multiple Group 1 winner, as I was a supporter of his when he was an 80-rated handicapper. I've never managed to catch him right, but he is the main danger.
Kalpana 6/5 – Ascot 2.40
She is getting older, but Kalpana is the class act in this field, and there's no way that she should be anything above EVS.
Kalpana has won this race twice on the bounce, and the way she has been running this year, what's to suggest she can't make it a third? I find it unbelievable that she was 2/1 earlier in the week, and if I were an avid antepost bettor, I'd have snapped your arm off for that type of price.
The opposition is decent, but not extraordinary. The second favourite is a Group 1 winner, but she showed that she can massively flop when she was miles behind at York in the race that Kalpana was a fortunate winner of. To my knowledge, that was Johanna Walsh's first attempt against the older fillies, and considering the performance was that bad, I struggle to see how she will beat Kalpana.
As mentioned, Kalpana was a fortunate winner at York, and Sparan Nua probably should have won. You can either look at that one of two ways, and I take the approach that the runner-up ran the race of her life. I tipped that runner-up on her next run, and she was appalling. Kalapana showed her class earlier in the season when beating Calandagan by a widening 1.5 lengths, and that's all that needs to be said.
GambleAware