Matt Brocklebank, who tipped Coroebus antepost for the 2000 Guineas, looks ahead to QIPCO 1000 Guineas day at Newmarket, with a couple of recommended bets on the card.
Value Bet tips: Sunday May 1
1pt win Soapy Stevens in 1.50 Newmarket at 14/1 (Betfair, Paddy Power)
1pt win Ameynah in 3.40 Newmarket at 25/1 (General)
Already advised:
Is Tenebrism going to get the trip?
All eyes on Tenebrism in Sunday’s QIPCO 1000 Guineas Stakes and there is an argument to suggest she could be a touch shorter in the betting than she already is.
A brilliant winner first time out in late-March last year, she subsequently had to miss Royal Ascot due to a setback which eventually kept her off the track until the Cheveley Park Stakes on September 25, when duly making it 2-2 with a one-length victory over Flotus and Sandrine, who were rated 104 and 108 at the time.
Tenebrism isn’t necessarily a typical Aidan O’Brien-trained Guineas horse – the type that goes on to even better things as they step up to middle-distances later in the campaign, but there’s clearly a good chance she’ll stay the mile well enough based on her pedigree (out of Immortal Verse), and her potential is there for all to see.
She’s not the only one who has it, though, and that brings in not only Tenebrism’s stablemate Tuesday, who is a sister to Minding and looks a top filly in the making in her own right, but also the Roger Varian-trained AMEYNAH.
I’m pretty sure she’d have won on debut here in October had she got a clear passage and it must have been quite frustrating for connections to sit on their hands all winter before brining the daughter of Exceed And Excel back to right the wrong in another seven-furlong maiden at the Craven Meeting.
Sent off even-money that day, she didn’t disappoint, travelling sweetly for David Egan before skipping three and three-quarter lengths clear of William Haggas’ Coronation Stakes entry Enshrine.
Ameynah (also in the Coronation) looks to have loads of natural pace like so many of her sire’s progeny but she’s also from a stout family (sister won over 1m4f, dam out of Group Two 10f winner) and she was very strong at the finish on her comeback.
It’s a big step from maiden to Classic but she improved around a stone between her first two starts and the fifth from her last race has since won a Yarmouth maiden by four lengths so there’s some positive collateral form to work with too.
Not many of the others are open to quite so much further progress so at the odds I reckons she’s worth a win-only dart.
Clean up with Johnstons' Soapy
The other race that appeals is the Betfair Daily Rewards Handicap over a mile and three-quarters.
Sir Mark Prescott’s Revolver is clearly fascinating on his first run since the 2020 Doncaster Cup, when a well-held fourth having previously won a Pontefract handicap in good style from a 7lb lower mark than today’s.
He’s won when fresh in the past but isn’t being missed in the market and ready preference is for the race-fit SOAPY STEVENS.
The son of Harzand unsurprisingly only really came onto the radar once stepped up in distance as a three-year-old (0-3 at two) and he ran quite a lot better than the finishing position suggests when down the field in the King George V Stakes at Royal Ascot.
Dropping back to a mile and a half didn’t play to his strengths at all around there and he subsequently flopped in the Haydock mud in July before being put away.
Given the extended winter break, it was very encouraging to see Mark and Charlie Johnston’s horse run such a pleasing race when fifth at Musselburgh in last month’s Queen’s Cup and the Middleham team has used that race to tee up plenty of their better stayers over the years.
Soapy Stevens has been dropped another pound for the comeback run which looks generous and leaves him just 5lb higher than for his second victory last summer. Musselburgh runner-up Dark Jedi reopposes and should uphold the form strictly on these terms but he’d had a prep run at Doncaster going into that race and I suspect this course – and the decent ground – will play more into the hands of the selection.
Published at 1600 BST on 30/04/22
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