Blushing Red
Another glorious day here at HQ. I had a fantastic evening at Highclere’s Royal Ascot preview evening last night and we are now only just over 96 hours away from the start of what should be an excellent week’s racing.
Sukoot ran well when fifth on debut at Nottingham yesterday. He stuck to the task well and I hope he can step forward on this when he next runs.
We run two horses this afternoon at Sandown and York. Opposition runs in the 1m4f Apprentice handicap up at York. He came back to form when just denied recently at Windsor and if he reproduces that run today then he will go close. York promises to suit him better than Windsor given he is a long striding horse and we have enlisted the help of top Apprentice Adam McNamara. We are three pounds well in at the weights vs our main market rival Hurricane Hollow who is four pounds well in at the weights. Hurricane Hollow steps up in class here but he has the low weight of 8:12 once the claim is taken into account. It doesn’t look like an incredibly deep race but Panko held on well when making all last time and Alphabetical Order was very progressive last year but he has an absence to overcome.
Blushing Red runs in the 5:25 1m6f handicap at Sandown. Despite there only being six runners it looks like a competitive race. Our colt ran well last time given he missed the break and had to be held up off of a slow gallop. He galloped on well and was just found out for toe by those in front of him. The new trip is an unknown but the visual evidence suggests a step up in distance will bring about some improvement. The quick ground today is an unknown but he is a very sound horse and we felt it is worth finding out if he handles it given it is likely to be nice safe, fast ground at Sandown today. Dominating has been inconsistent but he was very impressive last time over 1m6f and looks like the horse we all have to beat. Oxford Blue and Ulysees could both improve on their first start at 1m6f whilst Chaparrachik ran into an improver last time and Look My Way ran respectably in a valuable race.