John Ingles provides an overview of the key things to note on Thursday.
Runman looks an interesting debutant for Gosdens at Salisbury
Two-year-olds feature heavily on Salisbury’s card with the first five races all for juveniles, and among those making their debuts is Runman who starts out in the novice over a mile (13:40). He’s the only runner on the card for John & Thady Gosden who have the ‘Hot Trainer’ flag.
Runman makes plenty of appeal on pedigree as he’s by Frankel and out of a mare, the fairly useful nine/ten-furlong winner Bella Nouf, who has already produced two good fillies. One of those is Runman’s full sister Majestic Glory who won the Sweet Solera Stakes while the other is his smart half-sister Running Lion, owned, like Runman, by David Howden. She was a Royal Ascot winner last year in the Duke of Cambridge Stakes and recently gained a sixth career victory in a listed race at Yarmouth.
Although Andrew Balding is represented in the same race by another newcomer, The Outback Arrow, Oisin Murphy will be aboard Runman and staying loyal to the family as he’s been the regular rider of Running Lion over the last three seasons.
Pinkie weighted to win again at Nottingham
Ivan Furtado has been among the winners in recent weeks but had his best recent result at the Curragh last Saturday when two-year-old August George split a pair from Ballydoyle in finishing second of thirty in the hugely valuable Goffs Million sales race, taking home €195,000 in the process.
While Nottingham’s Grassroots Finals Day can’t boast the same rewards, there is still decent prize money for the handicappers this series caters for, and Furtado has a good chance of landing the Stayers’ Final (16:05) with Rock N Roll Pinkie.
The mare is very much at home at Nottingham, having the ‘Horses For Courses’ flag after three course-and-distance wins over a mile and three quarters, the latest one in June. She has also won twice at York since then and proved better than ever on her latest start when doing well to come from well off the pace to land the spoils in a thriller where the first three home were only separated by noses. She heads the Timeform weight-adjusted ratings here and is fancied to follow up from just a 2 lb higher mark for that success.
Profitable new recruit for Owen in Timeform Sprint?
Chelmsford’s evening meeting stages the first qualifier in the new Timeform Sprint Series, with ten such races taking place at the track in the coming months building towards a £40,000 final on December 18th.
An eye-catching contender in this first qualifier (19:15) is Profit Street at the foot of the weights, making his first start for James Owen in the colours of the Horse Watchers. He’s joined a yard that does extremely well with such types and therefore has the ‘Trainer Uplift’ flag.
Profit Street won twice on the all-weather at Newcastle for his former trainer, Nigel Tinkler, and has slipped to a good mark since his last victory which came last summer. However, he ran some respectable races early in the year and reappears now after a break since April, having changed hands for 14,000 guineas in the meantime, and missed an engagement at Catterick the day before to run here. Now 8 lb below his last winning mark, Profit Street heads the Timeform weight-adjusted ratings and looks very interesting, especially if there’s confidence behind him in the betting.
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