Saturday’s Racing Tips – Regional has the Group 1 form to be too strong at Newbury

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Cairnzy is busy so he hasn't had the time to put up horses, so for Saturday Rizzel has two selections for a good day of racing on the flat and over the jumps.

Rizzel's Tips

Regional 5/2 – Newbury 3.00

The sprint division at the top level is very hard to call as since Blue Point and Bataash have retired we've not had a standout sprinter you can nail down as being dominant. This is a Group 3, but we've got Group 1 runners in this race, and though it might be boring, I'm opting for Regional who is a Group 1 winner from last season.

I can see why punters will latch onto the 3-year-olds in this contest, as they are getting the weight from the older horses and they look progressive. However, I think they will struggle now going against seasoned sprinters who have been there and done it against other older horses at this level. We see it on a regular basis when younger horses come against the older horses, they don't tend to hit the ground running straight away and it comes as a shock that their form against their own age group isn't what it's cracked up to be. Regional won the Haydock Group 1 sprint last year, and when you see that he beat a 50/1 and 66/1 to the places you can easily mock that form, but in hindsight it has worked out well. Khaadem (fifth) and Mill Stream (sixth) have both come out and won Group 1's since, with the latter winning the July Cup last weekend. You also had Swingalong who was fourth in the Haydock Group 1, and she finished as runner-up to Mill Stream in the July Cup, so there's definite substance to this race.

Regional has made a good return to racing this year, even though he hasn't been campaigned aggressively, with Edward Bethell taking a clear approach of carefully planning out his races. He was second on seasonal reappearance at the Curragh, which was a good run on the back of a 259-day absence. He then went to Royal Ascot where he ran over 5f, which doesn't appear to be his trip these days, but he finished second in the Group 1, just a length behind the Australian raider, with the very talented Big Evs back in third.

Edward Bethell's horse seems to be getting better with age, which is quite normal for sprinters, and with this race not looking like the strongest of renewals, I think he has to be the horse to be on.

Dinons 18/1 – Market Rasen 3.15 (each-way)

Other than the Galway Festival, the highlight of the summer jumps season is the Market Rasen Summer Plate meeting and for the main attraction I like Dinons, who was a selection last weekend at Perth, but he was a NR that day.

When this horse was trained in Ireland by Gordon Elliott he used to be a very talented horse over hurdles and fences. He reached a peak rating of 146 and won eight times for Gordon, but between 2019 and 2020 his form took a huge dip and they decided to get rid of him, and he ended up being snapped up by Mark Campion who didn't get the best out of him, with his handicap mark plummeting from 143 to 115 which he managed to win off on his final start for Mark. This horse has clearly had his problems over the years, but after a 727-day absence and another trainer swap, this time for Brian Ellison, Dinons managed to win on stable debut over hurdles by an eased down ten lengths. To win off such a long time away from the track and to win eased down shows how good Brian Ellison is, and despite that race being in a much weaker grade than today's race, and he is over fences today, there's surely more to come from this horse who was rated much higher in the past.

I think it is worth noting that Dinons was withdrawn from Perth last weekend and the reason was ‘unsuitable ground', which I don't buy into at all. The ground was good at Perth last weekend and the ground at Market Rasen is going to be similar, but I think that was just an excuse as connections were clearly umming and ahhing about what route to take, and they decided late on that the Market Rasen Summer Plate was the next target so they decided to pull him out at Perth. Today's race is tougher than the Perth race, but with £56,950 going to the winner, it would be a no-brainer to go for this race if they feel like he is ahead of his handicap mark at the age of 11. He handles any ground, and given the way he sees out this trip, normally with a strong finish after jumping the last, I think he has a nice EW chance in this race from the bottom weight.

Despite being an 11-year-old, Dinons is relatively lightly raced over obstacles, with just 23 runs combined over fences and hurdles. He has gone up 10lbs in the weights for his recent win, but the way that Brian Ellison improved Angler's Crag who was a 9-year-old (turned him into a 134 rated chaser from 106 in four runs, winning the Eider along the way), there's plenty of optimism that he can bring out more from this horse.

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