Daily Dial #142 – Four From the Tracker…

A bumper day of it on the betting front, going to war with four chanced and all from the Tracker. This has been a real rarity but, having effectively started again from ground zero in December, maybe it’s a sign of getting back to full swing. Hopefully the results start to follow. I used to have runners from the Tracker nearly every day of the week but there have been days on end without one over the last few months, which has been unnerving.

Yesterday drew another blank – one deservedly so with George Scott’s Elmfield nowhere near good enough, but the latter race had me, yet again, utterly perplexed. I’m either drawing on an insatiable stroke of misfortune, or I’ve lost all ability to judge the pace of a race. Considering yesterday’s latest runner to quite literally spring a surprise had made no attempt to take the lead in any of their nine previous starts, I think it was a fair assumption they would again settle in.

It wasn’t to be though, as Adam Kirby’s MyMate Mackey sprung the gate and pressed on, setting a fair gallop and making every yard of the running. It meant the wider draw for the bet, which, due to expecting a lack of pace, I hadn’t worried about, suddenly became a massive factor and one the bet was never recovering from. As I mentioned Saturday, he had gone three years without a win prior to rattling three in one term last year, so maybe I’ve just been barking up a dead end and chasing a difficult one.

First up is ISABELLA DE VEGA for the Ed Walker 2TO angle, only this one bucks the trend having put in a very eyecatching display on debut at Thirsk. She was given a typically easy introductory ride that day, but finished very well to make up bundles of ground in the latter stages, finishing 3l down in 3rd behind a beautifully bred filly of Sir Mark Prescott’s, Martinet, with both the winner and runner-up having the benefit of experience with a previous run under their belts. She was due to run on Tuesday, and was going to be bet there, but she was taken out when already entered for this. She looks a useful sort, who could have any amount of improvement in her, and she is a full sister to three high performers both here and in the U.S.

Next up is HAVANA LIGHTNING for George Boughey, who I had marked as one to watch in the Queen Mary following a dominant win at Yarmouth, backing up why she was punted off the boards ahead of her somewhat disappointing debut. She got a torrid run of things in the Queen Mary, being drawn on the wrong side and then suffering a brutally messy passage throughout. This is no walk in the park by any means, and I quite like the look of James Fanshawe’s Blue Flight at a price too, but this is no Queen Mary and a clearer run surely awaits her. She looks smart. Betfred are paying 4 Places at 1/5 the odds.

Over in Ireland next up is KISS DON’T TELL, who went in the Tracker when I saw she’d been given an opening mark of just 68. She caught my eye when putting in a massive run in a decent Maiden at Naas, where she attempted to forge her own path down the centre of the track, wandered all over and would’ve finished closer than the 4l 5th she managed, but for getting a rear end smacked across her cheeks inside the final furlong. The form of that race suggests she ran to a mark approaching the 80s, so she should be winning races soon enough off of her mark. Bet365 are 16/1 paying 4 Places at 1/5 odds.

Lastly it’s to Thirsk, where I think Scott Dixon has got his hands on a right useful one in SHADOW RUN. I harp on like a harpy thing about the Irish transfers into U.K. handicaps, but there can be few better examples of just how well treated they can be than this lad’s stable debut at the beginning of this month. Having run to a good level in Ireland for Michael O’Callaghan, where he ran a ½ length 2nd of 15 on Handicap debut at Naas in March, he looked potentially well treated on his first U.K. start off of 72, and duly performed like it too, only to bump into Suspicious Mindz, a Bated Breath gelding on his first start for Seb Spencer having switched from…? Yes, Ireland. He had form in a string of Irish Maidens and had even run a 1½ length 3rd in a Listed race at Tipperary behind Group 1-winning Thesecretadversary. Running off of 84 and with a 5lb claimer on board, he was, with hindsight, going to be tough to beat. 12/1 General.

One who deserves a specific mention from the ‘Others to note’, is Southern Boulevard, who I put up on debut on account of Ger Lyons pitching her into a race at Naas in which he had won three of the four previous renewals with similar types. She over-raced that day and duly ran no sort of race, finishing well pumped, and I put a line through her. She was sent off 20/1 next time out, in a very decent Curragh Maiden. I was watching through my hands when, inside the 2f marker, Gary Carroll pressed go on her and she started streaking away with it. She looked like she was going to go on and win how she liked, only to get lonely out in front and find herself reeled in.

Southern Boulevard (13/8, Cork 16:53) and Sir Edward Lear (5/1, Newmarket 18:27).

Best of luck to all getting involved today.