Juliette ' s weekly frolic Racing is in for a quietish week
with only three meetings to exercise the mind this Saturday. Richest prize at the main one, Newbury, is the E7,000-added Geoffrey Freer Stakes, but rivalling it in interest — and outdoing it in side bests — will be the final of the Amateur Gentlemen's Match Races between Lord Suffolk and Bill Shand Kydd. Both adopted similar pouncing tactics in their semi-finals last weekend, but I understand the former has more to lose financially which should spur him on to even greater effort. Offering advice so far in advance it seems safer to stick with the big handicaps — the Group 2 Geoffrey Freer may boast a sparkling classic-class entry, but as like as not this will dwindle to single figures at the ' off.' On the other hand, the preceding Yellow Pages Summer Cup is pretty well guaranteed to produce a large field with plenty of scope for dipping into the comparative weights and merits of those engaged. The pair I hope to see run in this three-year-old handicap are Superior Sam and Palace of Medina, who both finished fast, though unsuccessfully, in their races at Goodwood. The filly, Palace of Medina, has already upstaged the opposite sex by beating the consistent Reformed Character, and her subsequent Sussex defeat owed much to her changing position twice in the closing stages —
tactics that earned Piggott some rare reprimands from the racing press.
On Friday the field for the featured Hungerford Stakes is again anyone's guess, a remark that can equally well be applied to the likelihood of finding the winner of the earlier Russley Stakes. However the probable presence of two losing selections of mine — Montmarte in print, Tudor Rhythm in the betting shop — demand I give it attention. The former has the more illustrious parentage, but the latter has proved himself where it matters, in reeling off a four-timer before narrowly failing to concede 17Ib to Cupid at Goodwood.
Trainers never cease complaining at the unfair burdens placed on their charges by a heartless handicapper, but one who can have no quarrel on this score, is Cohn Crossley. The weights for Ripon's Great St Wilfred Handicap may have been published before his Moor Lane ran third in the Stewards' Cup, hut the horse has run consistently fast all season' and actually broke Epsom's six-furlong record at the Derby meeting. With the 7.7 minimum in Saturday's . sprint, he is pounds better off with at least ten of those he beat last time.
Assets: £87 243. Outlay: E.3 to win Palace of Medina, Tudor Rhythm and Moor Lane.
Previous page
