Horses to follow: Trackside Live team with horses for My Stable

Race To The Stars (Charlie Appleby) – Southwell, September 2

It’s easy to scoff at all-weather form, isn’t it? Just a succession of low-grade handicaps and Classified events, put on for the betting shops. Well, you may have a point come January, but the maidens in the autumn and winter now throw up some very useful types – I’ll remind you both Elmalka and Notable Speech, Classic winners in recent times, both made their debuts on the all-weather in the winter and on Tuesday at Southwell, I have a feeling we saw another potentially useful one in the shape of Race To The Stars.

A half-brother to the useful stayer Yibir, and also triple Group 1 winner Wild Illusion, he was exactly how you’d imagined he might be in the paddock; solidly built, good engine at the back and looking every inch a stayer. The impression he created in the race merely backed that up; he took his time to find stride but once he got rolling, ground down long-time leader Port Of London (himself a useful-looking sort) and went away to win a ready length and a quarter.

I think this maiden will work out well long-term and some of those down the field need looking at with handicaps in mind but Race To The Stars is potentially a very useful sort for staying events next year. One to keep onside.

Jaunty Viking (Brian Eckley) – Stratford, September 6

From a potential Group horse to a potential 0-100 chase winner. You can’t say we don’t get about at Trackside.

Jaunty Viking is a risky one to be sticking in the column, given how quickly he stopped on Saturday night, but after an 898-day absence perhaps that was to be expected.

I really liked him in the paddock; a proper old-fashioned chaser, he dwarfed most of his rivals but the way he travelled and jumped (trading a quarter of his pre-race Betfair price) suggested the engine was still intact. There’s nothing in the stewards reports to suggest that his slowing and stopping three out was anything other than him getting tired; with that he might well need another run or two to put him straight, but there’s a little handicap or two to be won with him, if Brian Eckley can get a clear shot at training him without any more absences.

Dyonisos (Ian Williams) – York, September 7

I was toying with the idea of putting something from the maiden on the card in the column but there were so many green horses in the pre-parade and paddock (including favourite Secret History) that any number of them could improve, and picking one of them would have been difficult. I’ll just say keep an eye on the race, there will be plenty that improve from it.

Instead I’ll put up a handicapper that might well be winning this autumn. Dyonisos looked a picture in the paddock for the 3:00 and was approaching something like full fitness, I’d say.

The drying ground was probably against him here and he didn’t get the best of runs, but he just about showed enough to think that once the ground turns properly soft there could be a good end-of-season sprint in him. He hasn’t been with Ian Williams long, connections having paid E97,000 for him in the summer, but was progressive in France and can pick up that progression at some point this autumn.

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