Betcirca followers enjoyed a French Guineas double on Sunday with Make Believe (6-1) and Ervedya (15-8) as well as a 9.5 point profit on Sunday’s Premiership football. This week’s racing action will revolve around the Dante meeting at York which will hopefully shed some light on a very murky Epsom Derby picture.
The pick of Monday’s action comes from Doncaster with eight races starting at 2.10. The maiden race at 3.50 has brought together two very promising colts that finished runner-up on their racecourse debuts.
The Sir Michael Stoute-trained Mustaaqeem is a son of Dynaformer out of a Danzig mare and finished second in the Wood Ditton at Newmarket. That race didn’t look anything special this year but Mustaaqeem stuck on really well up the far rail and is a very imposing individual. His market rival is Druids Ridge, trained by John Gosden.
He made his debut Newbury where he was beaten a length by Sahaafy after making his challenge on the wide outside. That was a very commendable first effort and he travelled nicely for a long way. I’m just going for the Stoute colt because the stable’s runners usually improve significantly for the outing.
The feature race is a seven-furlong handicap at 4.25 with sixteen runners. The one that I like here is Shared Equity, trained by Jedd O’Keeffe and ridden by Graham Lee. He has won three of his seven starts including a win at Newcastle over this distance. He ran a great race when third in a six-furlong handicap at the Lincoln meeting and can reverse the form with runner-up Farlow.
Shared Equity was drawn on the far side that day and Lee tried to keep a bit up his sleeve for the final stages. He was chopped off in his run when passed by eventual winner Tatlisu but ran on again close home. The return to seven furlongs could see him returning to the winners’ enclosure.
We enjoyed a couple of big priced winners in three-year-old handicaps at Chester with Not Never (11-1) and Navigate (10-1). The 5.00 at Doncaster is another interesting handicap with some promising runners, notably the unbeaten Mulaaseq.
He is trained by Marcus Tregoning and came with a late run to beat Nortron by a short-head here on his debut. Paul Hanagan was looking after him in the closing stages and it looked for a long time as though he would finish a promising third or fourth. Once Hanagan got after him, he quickened really nicely and he could prove better than his rating of 80.
The one I fear most is the Ralph Beckett-trained Master Of Irony, a winner at Lingfield on the all-weather in December. He did everything wrong that day, starting slowly and running very wide on the bend into the straight. It was to his credit that he was still able to win quite comfortably and he is the obvious threat.
Mustaaqeem 3.50 @11-10 Betfair
Shared Equity 4.25 @5-1 Ladbrokes
Mulaaseq 5.00 @9-4 Betfair
