Four meetings are live to enjoy on Sunday. The flat cards from Chelmsford and Ayr highlight our 5,417/1 Lucky 15 top tips.
Damaar (2.45 Chelmsford)
These would not normally be the surroundings for a Godolophin-owned runner trained by John & Thady Gosden. Yet, DAMAAR finds himself here and with a good chance of victory too.
He is very intriguingly bred, as he is by three-time Group 1 winner Decorated Knight and out of a half-sister to Gold Cup winner Order Of St George. That mare, Arwa, won over 6f as a juvenile, so there is all kinds of speed, stamina and class abound in Damaar’s heritage.
Gosdens charge beat a decent yardstick in Wodeton on debut, but has failed to build on that. On a line through that rival though, who won readily at Epsom recently off a mark of 78, Damaar’s new rating of 77 looks very winnable indeed. He was well below that level at Newmarket last time, but his reappearance at that track was fairly solid in a hot race.
Benoit De La Sayette’s claim may look useful for quite a while longer and this is a huge drop in class. Alarm bells will ring if he cannot put in a good challenge.
Shanko (3.55 Chelmsford)
SHANKO won his first two career starts and although he has been winless since, there are reasons to be very positive about those efforts.
The predominant factor is that both of those came at Chelmsford. The first was over course and distance on debut, while he then followed up over 5f under a penalty in January.
He has been placed twice in handicap company since, the most recent being at Windsor in May. However, he simply has not shown the same level of form on the all-weather as he has on turf. At Musselburgh latest, that was fairly evident as he tailed home in ninth of 11.
His mark of 85 is 5lb higher than his one on turf given the disparity of his performance levels. He could easily be much more competitive here on a surface he prefers.
Tilsitt (4.02 Ayr)
Horses who are bona fide course specialists are always enjoyable to get behind and TILSITT is definitely one of those for R Mike Smith.
In nine starts at Ayr, over 7f-1m, Tilsitt has only once failed to finish in the first three. That came on his debut for the yard and ever since, he has gone 33322121. If anything, he is only improving at the venue.
That most recent success came at the end of May off a mark of 77, while he ran very respectably at Carlisle last time out as well off 2lb higher. The return to this track is definitely a positive and on the form of that aforementioned victory, he would be in with a tremendous chance.
This represents a step up to a class 3 handicap for the first time, but if he is ever to be uo to it, it will be here.
Bankawi (5.12 Ayr)
Classified stakes races can be tricky to deduce with low grade horses running at level weights with each other.
Clear among these on any recent efforts would be BANKAWI, who may be slightly regressive, but still holds a form edge. He reached a peak mark of 60 last summer and has dropped 10lb since.
That said, his last two runs, when fourth at Catterick and third at Beverley, have been much better than anything he had shown for ten months. Both of those races would be a fair bit stronger than this.
Few against him look overly likely to be winning and he should go off favourite.