Horse Racing Best Bets On Monday, April 25
Racing Tips had a brilliant spell on our NAPs and Lucky 15s last week. Our Lucky 15 best bets on Monday come from Ayr and Lingfield.
Impressor (2.15 Ayr)
Initially trained by Marcus Tregoning, IMPRESSOR’s career has taken many a turn that would not have been expected after a juvenile win at Salisbury in August 2019.
Since then, he has failed to win. A Group 3 place at Newmarket on his final start at two preceded an almighty change of fortunes, in which he has now fallen a total of 43lb in the handicap.
There have been some decent showings along the way though, which gives hope that he can make hay at this lowly grade. On his return to turf most recently, he was fifth of 17 at Thirsk, with hope that he could easily prove better back on a sounder surface too.
He has been dropped yet another 2lb to a mark of 56 here and a winning revival is not out of the question whatsoever.
Making Music (3.15 Lingfield)
This is a very open fillies’ handicap, but perhaps the most likely wide-margin winner of the race is MAKING MUSIC, who could easily step forward on what she has achieved to date.
Her last run at Nottingham was too bad to be true and can be discounted on the merits of her previous efforts, not least the one which came on an all-weather surface. That was her debut at Kempton, in which she finished third to Natasha, a horse who concluded the season in Group 1 company.
She was fourth to that same rival next time out at Sandown. That was on turf though and neither start on grass has shown her in as good a light as on polytrack.
Her pening mark of 68 easily leaves room to manoeuvre and Jamie Spencer is a positive booking by her yard.
Lampang (3.25 Ayr)
LAMPANG is another horse on a slide, but Tim Easterby’s five-year-old is taken to bounce back at the start of this season.
Four 0s and an 8 appear in his most recent five starts in the form book, but every single one of those was a class 2 handicap or a Listed race. He drops down to a class 3 here, off 2lb lower than his last winning mark.
That previous victory did not come as long ago as would be thought. It was last June at Hamilton, on this sort of quick ground. He also did so off 10st, impressive enough in itself.
He goes well enough fresh and in this smaller field, he could easily take advantage of calmer waters.
Western Stars (4.30 Ayr)
William Haggas’ Post Impressionist deserves to be a short price after finishing runner-up on debut, but WESTERN STARS was an eyecatcher in the Wood Ditton maiden at Newmarket recently.
He was squeezed out of room early on in that race, meaning Marco Ghiani was forced to plot a wider than ideal course down the Rowley Mile. Down a part of the track which proved inconvenient throughout the day, he stayed on nicely enough to be eighth of 13.
Given how little went for him in-running that day, there is scope for plenty of improvement with a run under his belt. Regardless of interference, he certainly belied odds of 100/1 on debut.
Ed Dunlop’s current 17% strike rate is well above average for the yard and this horse could make the odds-on favourite work very hard.