Good afternoon from Newmarket. We begin a busy week with three runners spread between Lingfield this afternoon and Windsor this evening.
We get underway with Shawaaheq in the mile 0-80 handicap for three-year-olds at 3.45 at Lingfield. Only four go to post, but it is a competitive affair in which all the runners have a chance. Our horse won his maiden over seven and a half furlongs at Beverley in June, then finished a fine second at Chelmsford when dropped back to seven-furlongs last time out. We feel that he is now ready to step back up to a mile and this looks a suitable opportunity.
The market leader Eligible is likely to be hard to beat, as he won nicely at Salisbury last time and appears progressive. However, when we met him in a maiden at Leicester earlier in the year we were a neck in front of him at level weights, whereas on this occasion we receive five pounds. So we have a good chance on the book, and it will be interesting to see if Shawaaheq can maintain his progress.
Half an hour later, in the seven-furlong maiden for three-year-olds and above also at Lingfield, Alameery makes a belated racecourse debut. This son of Kingman has been held up by little setbacks, but is now ready to get started and it will be fascinating to see how he gets on. He has definitely shown us some ability at home, but like the vast majority of my runners he is sure to improve for the experience. Hopefully he can display a bit of promise and give us something to work on going forwards. Jim Crowley rides both of our Lingfield runners.
We move on to Windsor for our third and final runner of the day, when Global Art takes his chance in the mile and a quarter 0-80 handicap at 7.00.
A talented, tough and consistent sort on the AW - both of whose wins have come on artificial surfaces - he has just his seventh career outing on turf this evening. Hopefully that means there is more improvement to come, although there needs to be to defy a mark of 81. He looks just a shade high in the weights, but it is hoped that having Adam Kirby on board and the re-fitting of blinkers will allow him to find that little bit of required improvement. He rarely runs a bad race, and this should tell us more about his future prospects on the grass.
All the best,
Ed.