Saturday’s Horse Racing Tips: Three selections across the cards for Tom Collins

Tom Collins

19 July 2024

Another day with Aidan O’Brien in the spotlight awaits as the master of Ballydoyle looks to have an excellent chance of recording an eighth career victory in the Group 1 Irish Oaks.

Following the successes of Alexandrova (2006), Peeping Fawn (2007), Snowfall (2021) and Savethelastdance (2023) among others, O’Brien is the winningmost trainer of the three-year-old fillies event and he looks to have another strong hand to extend his advantage this year. The market originally had Ribblesdale winner Port Fairy as the favourite, but she was usurped by Content after Ryan Moore was declared to ride.

I’m strongly of the opinion that Content is the better filly anyway and I would have put her up as a bet this week if she remained around 5/1, but the value disappeared in the time between selecting her after declarations and writing this column so I will be leaving the race from a punting perspective.

Instead I will focus on the English fare, starting with the Weatherbys Super Sprint Stakes (3.35) at Newbury. Richard Hannon and Rod Millman have been the guys to follow in this two-year-old event in recent years but, despite each having a runner this time around, it would be a longshot to suggest either have the ability to win.

It Ain’t Two is the deserving favourite after finishing second in the Listed Dragon Stakes at Sandown last time out. He gets a nice racing weight due to his 10,000gns purchase price (weights are allocated on price rather than ratings in this contest) and has crucially been drawn high, so there’s little not to like about him.

However, in a near-maximum field of 19 runners it seems lazy to tip the favourite as there must be better value alternatives. With a desire to back a horse drawn high, I eventually came down on Do It Now, who has to improve given he carries top weight yet remains open to improvement and seems to be progressing nicely.

This colt perhaps should have won his penultimate outing but was stuck on the fence at the wrong time, before hacking up at Ripon in the style of a nice juvenile. He has been allocated stall 16, which is a big positive, and Adrien Keatley is having an excellent year with his two-year-olds (25%, +£2.96 to £1 level stakes). He will hopefully hit the frame at a nice price.

Talking of trainers with solid strike-rates, William Haggas had a much better June after a slow start to the campaign and it looks likely that he’s going to add a number of winners to his tally this weekend.

Two of his horses stand out, the first being Sunfall in the closing mile fillies’ handicap (5.20) at Newbury. This grey filly has won two of her four starts this year, both in impressive fashion, while there seem to be excuses for her defeats.

Her first loss came at Newmarket, where she didn’t seem to handle the undulations on the Rowley Mile and also broke slowly. The latter was a major factor in her third-placed finish at Chester last time, where she ran in snatches and seemed to hate the final turn as the field began to quicken.

Back on a more conventional track and hopefully under a forward ride from Tom Marquand, I’m hopeful that Sunfall will rack up her third win of the season by fending off Circe and Battle Queen, both of whom have run well in recent months.

Finally, it’s off to Newmarket for their first race of an evening meeting (4.20), where Waleefy will hopefully justify favouritism for Haggas, Shadwell and William Buick.

This colt is a half-brother to the brilliant Baaeed, two-time Group 1-winner Hukum, and Naqeeb, yet he has failed to show that he has anything like their respective abilities on the track so far. After three frankly disappointing runs, Haggas dropped him down to six furlongs at this course 23 days ago and he took a notable step forward.

Waleefy looked set for second for much of that race, but he really engaged overdrive up the hill while his faltering rival slowed down and just got up in the nick of time. The handicapper has only given him a 3lb rise, which seems pretty fair, and I like that they are returning to the course and distance of that success in an attempt to follow up.

Equiano Springs, Dashing Dick and Ancient Times all have upside, but Waleefy is far more exposed than those runners and remains open to a load of improvement over this distance, so he should be hard to beat.