A couple of things immediately strike me here, (a) its a quirky track where form rarely transfers well elsewhere and races can and often are stolen from the front by anything that can get to the lead, run at a nice rhythm and get the fractions right. The fly in the ointment today (b) is the sheer number of front and prominent running horses. So either something is going to gt to the front and dominate and get an awful lot of the field possibly sulking and running no kind of race, ot they are going to run at a suicidal pace and get pulled up like flies especially if the heat becomes a factor too.

 

I'm not going to really try and fathom out who will win the early pace battle but will look for value and something that may be able to lay up handy and come with a good run over the final half mile or so and pick off flagging horses.

 

FRANCKY DU BERLAIS won this last year, of course he did, he's a Bowen horse and they target these summer races with great efficiency; runs off just 2 lbs higher this time and if you can get 9/2 > 5/1 simply can't be ignored as a small saver bet.

 

We then have a host of improving, in form and unexposed front running types and some older but more experienced ones who need to boss the race to be seen to bst effect.

 

Take your pick of the less exposed ones like Mortlach, La Dominale, Texard, Mahlers Promise and AL ROC. Whilst i can;t really split them I do think at the price and given the visual impression made that AL ROC could be the best value of those especially as Tom Scudamore does have the ability to put the rest to rights when dictating pace on the right horse.

 

The pair who most interested me other than FDB (win saver) and AL ROC (shrapnel bet) are RAPID RESPONSE and LICKLIGHTER.

 

Rapid Response comes from Ireland and whilst not in the best of form in recent times has a nice chance based on some good 2021 form, it actually looks well handicapped and not given a silly rating by the UK handicapper, it can travel sweetly without the need to run right from the front and off this mark I can see it picking off rivals and running very strongly to the line.

 

LICKLIGHTER is a big price but has Chase wins off marks of 120 and 129, warmed up with a Course Hurdle win recently and runs off a mark of 127 with the Champion jockey something of an eye-catching booking at odds of around 33/1.

 

TRACKER - Rapid Response / shrapnel - Licklighter + Al Roc (saver of FDB if you wish)