Good morning from Newmarket. We endured a mixed time of things with our Chelmsford runners yesterday, but hopefully we can put that right with a couple of chances this evening.
Our first representative is the Tamayuz two-year-old Take Me To The Sky in the novice auction over seven-furlongs at 6.05 at Wolverhampton. Despite being relatively cheaply bought, this colt has always displayed some talent, and confirmed that opinion when a taking third at Newmarket on his debut a fortnight ago.
On that occasion he was a little slow to break from the stalls, and then found himself on the wrong side of the track as the race developed away from him. Despite that, he was able to make a telling surge two-furlongs from home and then just tired a little late on. Normal improvement from that run, and a slightly sharper break from the gates, should ensure that he is competitive today. The Andrew Balding-trained Berkshire Savvy is a major danger, whilst a couple of unraced types could be anything, but we still go to the races hopeful of a positive showing. Shane Kelly takes the ride.
For our second runner we have to wait until the 8.45 at Newcastle, a seven-furlong 0-55 handicap for three-year-olds and up. We make the long trip north with Roca Magica, a three-year-old daughter of Garswood who has been held up by various niggly issues and was pulled up on her only appearance of the season so far. She came out of that aborted run at Chelmsford relatively unscathed, but has taken time to get right again since.
However, I am happy with her just now and we need to get her onto a racecourse to try and ascertain how much ability she retains. She was second in a Kempton nursery last year, one of a couple of occasions on which she hinted that she might be capable of winning races, and it will be interesting to see how she gets on. This is only her second run in the best part of a year, so it is a tough ask, but I am keen to run her on the AW in a straight line, in a bid to try and give her a nice experience and to try and eliminate any possible excuses. Rab Havlin rides, fingers crossed for a decent performance.
All the best,
Ed.