Wednesday’s Racing Tips – Sakti can continue progressing at Killarney

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Rizzel had to watch from the sidelines on Tuesday as both of his fancies were non-runners. Nottingham was abandoned because of a waterlogged track which wiped out three of the picks on Tuesday as I also had one at that track.

Drama was my only selection of the day due to the abandoned meeting at Nottingham, but he could not land a blow in the race as the eventual winner Gutsy Girl scooted clear to win easily in the end.

Cairnzy's Tips

Genesius 15/8 – Thirsk 2.22

I'm looking forward to this race and it's hard to look past the two towards the head of the market. Rogue Tornado has turned a corner since joining the James Owen yard and looks the main danger dropping back to 1m4f after finishing a creditable third over further last time out. That said, I opted for the Sir Mark Prescott runner Genesius who comes here in good nick and looks like a horse ready to return to winning ways.

My selection won this particular race last year of a 1lb higher mark. He returned to racing after a 205 day break in May and has run some creditable races in defeat. His run most recently was the one that stuck out to me, going down by 2L to Karadia from the Ed Bethell yard. That was a great effort given Kardia is a lightly and progressive-looking sort from an in-form stable and is now rated in the near mid 80s. My selection was eased down in the final stages of that contest as winning was out of the question at that point.

Genesius brings the most solid form to the table and his third at Goodwood last month on good ground reads quite well, as the eventual winner Millers Spirit followed up next time out. The second Dancing In Paris also boosted the form when recently landing a a class 3 handicap only a few days ago at Ascot, getting up on the line to deny the well fancied Tactician from the Andrew Balding yard.

Although Genesius is versatile ground wise, the forecast rain definitely aids his chances as I feel his better form comes on softer ground conditions. You can't question the current form of the stable either, the strike rate figures have already been touched on by a member in the comments who also fancies this horse, although they will have changed since as I can see he had another winner at Kempton yesterday with Alla Stella.

Orbital Chime 9/1 EW – Thirsk 3.52

This looks a tricky race to solve and I'll be honest, I scratched my head at it for a while before finally deciding to roll the dice with Orbital Chime, who at 9/1 I felt was being over looked in the market and looks worthy of a small each-way play. Most of this field have been struggling for form and looking for a potentially well-handicapped horse, looked like the right way to go.

The James Horton trained Orbital Chime ticked a lot of boxes for me when it came to picking a selection for this race. Although the form figures are far from inspiring, Orbital Chime is still a lightly raced horse at the age of four and still has time on his side to improve this season. He only had the two starts last season but returned to finish sixth at Haydock after a 294 day layoff from the track. If you take into account the layoff and the fact he was up against some race fit horses, finishing 6L of the winner wasn't a bad run in the grand scheme of things. My selection is eased a further 2lb for that effort and should strip much fitter for the recent run.

The ground conditions are currently on the soft side and with more rain expected over the next few hours, it should at the very least remain soft. The soft ground conditions may find out some of this field, which may not be the case for Orbital Chime, whose only win came on heavy in a nursery back in 2022.

Rizzel's Tips

Sakti 7/4 – Killarney 6.20

Going through this race there was nothing standing out, and when I originally looked at Sakti I thought she scraped home on seasonal reappearance at Dundalk at odds of 1/4F so that put me off, but I think there's more substance to that than what it might look like.

There is only one Class 1 winner in this field and that is the top weight, Adelaise. Ignoring Sakti who is 0/2 in Class 1 company, the rest of the field reads a combined 0/17 at this level, and not many of them made a dent in the competition in those races. You can say that Sakti is also winless at Class 1 level, but she finished as runner-up on both of her starts in Group 3 and Group 2 races when she was a juvenile. It's hard to compare the level of juvenile form when a horse hasn't been tested as a 3yo, but the form of that season looked good with the winner of the Group 2 moving on to finish second in a Group 1, behind the horse who went on to win the Irish 1000 Guineas.

Obviously, at a first glance, seeing Sakti scramble home at Dundalk in March at odds of 1/4F isn't a great look. However, that was her first win in 180 days, and you could tell she was in desperate need of that run as she was green as grass, almost as if she was making her first start over her career. She dawdled when put under pressure, but managed to win whilst being pushed out by Colin. The runner-up and third-placed horse behind Sakti then went on to win on their second start, which made the form look a lot stronger as chances are they are decent horses as well.

Sakti will have to overcome another absence, which isn't ideal, but I think connections saw her win at Dundalk and thought she needed to mature, so they worked on her at home. This race is not as competitive as it might look on paper, and the form of many isn't up to much.

Ger Lyons didn't have a great season last year. He put up his lowest number of turf winners in 2023 since 2013, but 2013 saw him operate at a higher SR and was only 4 winners behind with 129 less runners, which showed what a poor season he had last year, so seeing Sakti run as well as she did last year when things clearly weren't going right gives me confidence now that the yard are firing on all cylinders with a 19% SR this year (10% in 2023).

Chef De Troupe 10/1 EW  – Uttoxeter 4.10

Thankfully, it looks like Uttoxeter is not expected to get any further rain, which should mean the meeting should go ahead, even though they do have standing water in places.

I don't think this is a strong race, and I'm more than happy going for one of the forecast outsiders of the field with Chef De Troupe. This race is hardly full of reliable horses, and though a case can be made for a few of these, I landed on Chef De Troupe who has a good record of running well at Uttoxeter and has already proven himself over this trip on soft ground.

Chef De Troupe is arguably on a tough handicap mark at the age of eleven, but prior to his unseat at Uttoxeter, he was in very good form with a win and a runner-up finish. The win came on soft ground in a Class 4 contest, albeit off a lower mark, but he won quite nicely and I think he could easily do something similar when he's likely to not be respected in the market, like he was when he won here.

You'd have to say that Dog Fox is the one to beat, as he is a younger more unexposed type and arrives to Uttoxeter with a win under his belt. The form of that win doesn't look to be anything spectacular and he faces completely different conditions today. He is short enough in the market, and I just thought Chef De Troupe was being massively overlooked in this, given he runs very well at this venue.

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