John Ingles of Timeform provides an overview of the key things to note on Friday.
Three points of interest
Urban form looking strong
A contest for three-year-olds over a mile and a quarter (13:50) is the first of two Heritage Handicaps on Newmarket’s card and this can go to Urban Glimpse for Andrew Balding whose stable is in red-hot form, having saddled four winners last Saturday alone and therefore has the ‘Hot Trainer’ flag.
Urban Glimpse is still unexposed, having won the second of three runs last year, a novice at Kempton, and finishing second in both his handicaps this term. The form of both those races has worked out well. Urban Glimpse shaped very well on his reappearance at Sandown where he held every chance entering the final furlong before going down to Sing Us A Song and then ran at least as well under much firmer conditions at York the following month. Leading briefly in the final furlong, Urban Glimpse went down by half a length to Dante’s Lad.
The useful winner has since followed up at Windsor and two of the beaten horses at York have also won next time out. Urban Glimpse heads the Timeform weight-adjusted ratings by a couple of pounds and he’s reunited here with Oisin Murphy for the first time since his debut. Murphy will be bidding to win this race for the second year running after partnering Involvement for the Crisfords last year.
January to prove too good for elders
The Falmouth Stakes (15:35) is the highlight on day two of the July Festival and it sees a rematch between the four-year-old fillies who finished first and second in last month’s Duke of Cambridge Stakes at Royal Ascot. Crimson Advocate got the better of Cinderella’s Dream on that occasion, though the latter wasn’t at her best there and is capable of turning the tables meeting that rival on 3 lb better terms this time. Running Lion was fourth in the same race and has something to find, therefore, along with last year’s 1000 Guineas winner Elmalka who was behind Cinderella’s Dream earlier in the season.
Three-year-olds have won six of the last nine runnings of the Falmouth and that trend can be maintained by January who looks the pick of the four members of the classic generation in the line-up and capable of getting the better of her older rivals. Aidan O’Brien’s two previous winners of the Falmouth, Alice Springs and Roly Poly, had finished placed in the Coronation Stakes beforehand and January herself was third in the same race at Royal Ascot last time.
Beaten only a length and a half behind outsider Cercene in the Coronation, that was a career-best effort from January who had ended her two-year-old season finishing second to subsequent 1000 Guineas winner Desert Flower in the Fillies’ Mile. She has plenty about her physically and looks sure to go well in a race in which her dam I Can Fly finished third in 2019.
Royal Ascot outsiders drop in grade in Summer Stakes
York’s Summer Stakes (14:45), a Group 3 six-furlong contest restricted to fillies and mares, features a couple of runners who excelled themselves at huge odds in Group 1 sprints at Royal Ascot last time and are seeking to back that up down in grade and against their own sex this time.
Nighteyes had been beaten in listed races in her first two starts this year and was sent off the outsider of the entire field at 100/1 for the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes but ran a fine race, sticking well to her task to finish just over four lengths fourth behind high-class French gelding Lazzat. A repeat of that effort would see her go very close here.
But preference is for Richard Hughes’ three-year-old Sayidah Dariyan who also outran huge odds at Royal Ascot, finishing fourth at 66/1 in the Commonwealth Cup, just over a length behind winner Time For Sandals having had every chance entering the final furlong. The winner of a useful conditions race at Chelmsford on her reappearance, Sayidah Dariyan has progressed with each run this season and she’ll be hard to beat if that trend continues, heading the Timeform weight-adjusted ratings here.
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