Saturday’s Racing Tips – Lead Artist is the new kid on the block for the seven furlong division

It's a great day of racing with Irish Champions weekend at Leopardstown at Leopardstown today and the Curragh on Sunday as well as the Doncaster St Leger meeting. As always, put your fancies in the comments.

There were some wild drifts on Rizzel's horses. Tiger Tulip drifted out to 9/1 from 7/2 and Miss Alpilles went out to 14/1 from 11/2. The first horse ran with credit from the front but was collared in the final furlong as the fast-finishing pair went past her. The Ed Walker horse was very laboured from the back of the field but started to run on towards the finish without making any serious inroads. Rizzel's other runner, Foreseen looked to be running a big race at huge odds, noticeably travelling well around the final bend but his efforts weakened.

Cairnzy's Tips

Lead Artist 11/4 – Doncaster 3.00

It sickens me to go against Kinross, who has been a favourite of mine over the years. In his pomp, he would win this race quite easily but his form has been a bit underwhelming this term, and at the age of seven I feel his best days are behind him. With that said, he is still your market leader for this contest and if he was to win, it wouldn't be a total surprise to the party.

The horse I like in this contest is the three-year-old Lead Artist from the Gosden yard, who looks a really progressive type and holds all the cards in my opinion to progress past Kinross this time round. Lead Artist has only raced the four times in his short career but he hasn't taken long to show the potential he has of being a consistent Group horse for the future.

There was a lot to like about his recent win in the Group 3 Thoroughbred Stakes at Goodwood last month, and credit where it's due, I thought Kieran Shoemark gave him a really good ride that day. Kieran popped him out against the rail and wasted no time in ensuring they went a good gallop. He had a lot of them working in behind before the two pole that day and showed a nice turn of foot under pressure to see off the challenge from Kings Gambit. The drop-down to 7f from a mile shouldn't be an issue, and he's open to improving further after only four career starts.

Native Warrior 4/1 – Doncaster 5.25

Three-year-olds have a decent strike rate when it comes to this contest so it's no surprise to see two of them head the market in this instance. William Haggas's Treasure Time currently heads favouritism at 9/4 but it's the Karl Burke trained Native Warrior that I thought was the most likely winner.

I thought Native Warrior brought some solid form to the table for this contest, In particular when finishing third in the Britannia Stakes at Royal Ascot on handicap debut. He did well to finish as close as he did that day given he raced away from the other pack and the performance alone suggested to me that this horse has a valuable handicap win in him at some stage in the future. In his most recent outing, Native Warrior went one spot better when finishing three-quarters of a length down in second at Goodwood. My selection was up against older and more experienced sorts on that occasion, but was unlucky having only been heading in the final one hundred yards or so.

I try my best to not compare AW form when tipping on turf but I still think it's worth mentioning Native Warrior's fourth-placed effort at Kempton on his seasonal return back in April. He finished just over 3L behind the eventual winner Notable Speech who has since won at Group One level while the third-placed horse Persica has since won a couple of valuable handicaps at Epsom and Sandown this term.

Rizzel's Tips

Mr King 6/1 EW – Doncaster 4.15

You would expect the handicaps at big meetings like today would be ultra-competitive, but I don't think this PJ Towey Construction Handicap is as strong as it could have been. I thought the clear top weight had a very good chance of winning this as he won at this meeting last year, but I liked Mr King who is towards the bottom of the weights.

It's a surprise that Ger Lyons and the previous owners of Mr King decided to let him go as when getting a race run to suit on ground he enjoys he is a decent handicapper, and he proved that for old connections when winning on his final start for them at Naas, doing it by pulling away at the finish off 10st 4lbs. That is slightly annoying as he did go up 7lbs for that win, but based on how he performed in a very competitive handicap at the York Ebor Festival a couple of weeks ago, he still looks dangerous off his newly revised mark. All week at York it was favourable to be on the pace and that was the key for the race Mr King contested last time out. The pace held up strongly and coming from off the pace which Mr King tried to do was near impossible, but he was a big eyecatcher at odds of 50/1 that day.

The decision to put him back up to 10f looks to be the correct call as his pedigree would suggest that this type of trip is what will be his optimal distance. He is related to two Ger Lyons horses, Thunder Kiss and Star Kissed who both stay further than 10f, but have form over this type of trip, proving that the mile he raced over last time is too short for him despite him having winning form at the trip.

Good ground will be perfect for him and he has some very nice pieces of form on this ground from last year over this trip. He was third behind Angelic Appeal who finished runner-up on her next start, but was beaten by a horse who was on a good mark. Take Heart was in second in the Curragh race and that horse has improved 15lbs since that race and got a win at the Glorious Goodwood festival earlier this year. Mr King was giving away weight to both of the horses ahead of him that day.

Michaela's Boy 8/1 EW – Lingfield 2.35

With some cracking action on both sides of the Irish Sea, it is easy to get bogged down in that action, but you can still find value from the other cards and I thought Michaela's Boy was a tad overpriced down at Lingfield.

Robert Cowell has started to hit some form over the last few weeks and Michaela's Boy has run well on his first two starts for his new yard. He was 3rd/10 on his stable debut and last of four the time after, but that race was very competitive for a four-runner race and he did run to form despite finishing last. With this now being his third run for the yard in less than a month, his fitness should be at its peak and the return to the all-weather supports this as he appears to be much happier on the artificial surfaces. He has a record of 2/6 on the all-weather as opposed to his 1/17 record on turf, so with him now returning to the all-weather it looks the right time to have a bet on him.

He is drawn in stall 2 so if they want to revert back to old winning tactics of making the running they have the perfect opportunity to do so. He is back on his last winning mark of 86 which came back in December 2022, which saw him win by 2.25L, so clearly he had plenty of wiggle room when previously running off this mark in the past.

Thames Boatman will likely be strong in the market and he was 0.75L ahead of Michaela's Boy's stablemate, Almaty Star who is also in today's race and arrives on the back of a recent success just eleven days ago. Given I think that The Thames Boatman will run a big race and is one of the horses to beat, it's interesting that Marco Ghiani is on board my selection than Almaty Star as the latter horse now has a 2lb pull in the weights from when that pair met. You'd like to think that Marco would have had the pick of the two Cowell horses as he has been used a lot more for the stable than Daniel Muscutt, with 68 rides to Daniel's 34 for the yard.

Rogue Bullet 11/2 EW 4 places – Bath 4.30

Bath is a track I'm not a huge fan of having a punt at as it is a tight track and getting a run can often be a nightmare. Not only that, the camera angle is awful and you can never tell how good or bad your horse is doing as you get a head-on view for the best part of 3f! Despite my lack of enthusiasm for the track, I thought Rogue Bullet was too good to pass up on, even from a wide-ish draw from Stall 8.

Jack Jones could have put Rogue Bullet in a nursery last time out as he got his mark, but they went for a Class 2 auction race which was always going to be a very tough task as he was giving weight away to the majority of the runners in the race, but also it was on soft ground and against better quality horses. I can see why they tried that route as the form of his novice races before that has worked out extremely well, and that's why I am backing him for this race.

He has been unlucky to bump into the level of horses he has from his two novice and one maiden race, but it will happen as every 2-year-old has to start off somewhere. He did run well on his first three starts without causing problems to those ahead of him, but in hindsight, that was always going to be a tough task.

Debut run (fifth)- The winner is now rated 90. Fourth is now rated 82 and finished a close 4th/20 at Doncaster on Thursday in a Class 2.

Second run (fourth) – The winner is now rated 103. The runner-up won the Class 2 race at Doncaster from above, recording an RPR of 97. The third-placed horse is rated 86 and recently won a Class 2 at York. The Fifth-placed horse is rated 87 and was second at Doncaster yesterday.

Third run (fourth) – The winner is now rated 89. The runner-up is rated 95. The third-placed horse is rated 90.

Rogue Bullet is running off a mark of 73 but gets the good 5lb claimer, Jack Doughty doing the steering, so is running off a mark of 68. I think all but one horse in this race has run in handicaps, and though they bring okay form to the table from those races, this looks like nice opportunity to get off the mark. The Clive Cox horse could be a fly in the ointment as she is making her first start in a handicap, but I think my selection's form is stronger.

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