No excuses for Life Is Beautiful, who was beaten by her stablemate.
The winner was always dangerous to totally disregard, given her previous form from other years, and she enjoyed the drop in grade and capitalised.
Cloth Of Gold 18/1 (0.5pt EW, 4pl) – Ayr 2.45
This is definitely a bit of a gamble, mostly on his fitness, but I think it's worth the chance based on the odds we're getting on Cloth Of Gold.
It's the beginning of the Ayr Gold Cup Festival, so every race like this is going to be competitive. I've liked Hornsea Bay for quite a while, and it's a surprise that he's not managed to get his head in front for a bit. I was tempted to back him again, but Cloth Of Gold caught my attention at the bottom of the weights.
This horse must have had a couple of setbacks, as we've not seen him on the track since the end of last year. He made three appearances late in his juvenile season, running well on two of the three. He was intended to come back in April, but was withdrawn because of the ground (good ground). He ran well on soft ground on his debut, and the form has worked out very well, so connections must've felt like he is best on soft ground, and will want to keep him to that surface. For the most part, we've had a dry summer, so maybe they've just waited till the autumn for him to get his ideal ground. If that's the case, and he has not had a setback, we could be cooking on gas.
On debut, he was behind Convergent. That horse has since transitioned into a Class 1 animal, and Karl Burke thinks he could be an Arc horse next year. He was a recent winning selection at Leopardstown. In that race, you had some good handicappers who have won a few races since. However, they were comfortably beaten by Cloth Of Gold and Convergent that day, so I get the impression he could be well ahead of his mark of 80 on his comeback; it just boils down to fitness.
Silver Chamber 6/4 (2pt) – Pontefract 2.52
I'll give one more chance to Silver Chamber, which was a losing selection at Windsor just over two weeks ago.
I was very confident that she would win last time out, as her form has been franked by the runner-up of her last win. She was very laboured at Windsor in parts, but Tom Marquand oozed confidence inside the final few furlongs, only for her to get beaten on the line by a handicap debutante.
This isn't an easy ride, but William Haggas' runners are always worth another go, especially when he sends them to the northern tracks where he has a superb strike rate. Cieran Fallon isn't anything to worry about; he has had a superb season when riding these horses at the Yorkshire tracks for Haggas.
GambleAware