Start with a horse whose figures have taken a sharp step up from a modest base. That combination is what a well handicapped horse looks like in the weeks before the assessor catches up with him. AT THE OCHE (2:38 Worcester, 11/10) is not fast yet. He is getting faster, which is the more useful of the two things. The corroboration sits at Wincanton back in March, where he finished a length and a half in front of one that has since won a class 4 and is now rated 7lb higher than the day they met. He won last time out, was placed in three of the four starts before that, and he has had this trip and this ground. The 165lb is the one thing capable of stopping him and we are not going to pretend it is nothing. Everything else about him points forward.
Brighton in the afternoon
Five to beat over a mile and three and a half furlongs. STINTINO SUNSET (2:20 Brighton, 4/1) has been placed in five of her last six without winning any of them, and that is exactly why she is 4/1 instead of half that. The mare who keeps finding one too good eventually stops finding one, and a six runner class 6 is where that happens. The weight is coming down, she is rated 49, and her fastest recent effort on the clock came lately rather than back in the spring. She has run over this trip and on this ground, so there is nothing new in front of her today. Her figures read better than the bare placings and she goes out of stall one.
HARRY’S POP (3:20 Brighton, 2/1) is back out six days after winning. That is a yard that liked what it saw. Good ground is where his record is strongest, and he takes his penalty as a progressive sprinter rather than a horse being asked to defy a rise he has not earned.
Naas, and the July form standing up
Winless in five and rated 45. That is the version of STEEL MAGNOLIA (4:30 Naas, 6/1) the market will look at, and it undersells her. At Bellewstown on 3 July she came home a length and three quarters ahead of a rival that has won since, and a second horse out of her recent races has also scored, so the level she has been running to has been checked twice by other people. She was second last time, so the ability is intact. Stall 18 sounds like a burden in a nineteen runner sprint and it is not, because over five furlongs at Naas that is a good place to be drawn. She has the trip and the ground behind her. One caveat we will state plainly rather than bury. On the clock she is not going forward, so this is a bet about the company she has kept and where she is drawn, not about a horse on the way up.
GLITTERING GEM (5:00 Naas, 11/2) has been second and third in her last three and still has not got her head in front. Eight days since she last ran, so she is mid campaign rather than coming back cold, and Sam Coen has a better strike round Naas than he manages elsewhere, which is worth having when eighteen of them go to post over a mile and three. Her recent efforts on the clock are modest and we hold nothing to suggest that is about to change. At 11/2 the consistency and the rider are the case.
Yesterday
Two winners from our five headline picks, Mojito Des Mottes at 13/2 and Orchard at 9/2.
Steel Magnolia is the one to watch the market on. Nineteen runners, five furlongs, a mare the handicapper has dropped to 45, and two horses out of her summer races that have gone on to win. If she drifts, that will be the market reading her last five finishing positions. We are reading what happened around them.