Tim Easterby has brought a horse back to the track inside a week and dropped him in grade to do it. INNS AND OUT (4:30 Beverley, 4/1) won last time out, and the usual reward for winning is a harder race next time. He gets an easier one. Class 6 over seven and a half furlongs on heavy, off a mark of 60, over a trip he has already got round. Stall four is the right end of the draw for this journey at Beverley, and David Allan goes better round here than his overall record would have you expect, which matters more than usual on a surface that punishes a jockey who takes the wrong ground. The five days between runs is the query and it is a fair one. Our reading is that a yard only turns a horse out that quickly when it has come out of the race well.
Yarmouth on soft
Five runners over five and a bit furlongs is a race with nowhere to hide, and everything gets decided in the first twenty seconds. KINSWOMAN (2:55 Yarmouth, 6/5) went to York on 10 July and came home a length and a half in front of a rival that has since won a class 2. That is a rung above today’s class 3, and she had it covered in July. Stall four is where you want to be over the minimum trip at Yarmouth. Against her, she has not won in five and was only fourth last time, and at 6/5 you are being asked to take the York run on trust with nothing left over for the rest of it.
ROSE COTTON (3:25 Yarmouth, 4/1) has been third and second in her last three without getting her head in front. The May run at Newbury has grown since, the one that edged her by three quarters of a length having gone on to win. She knows the trip, she knows soft ground, stall five suits.
Forty seven days off the track is what the 4/1 is paying you for.
Cork
BRUSSELS (4:05 Cork, 10/3) is top weight with 131lb and that is the whole argument against him. The argument for is that his times have been getting quicker and they stand up in this company rather than being built against lesser. Five furlongs at class 1 asks one question and the answer is usually the fastest horse. He has thirty days in hand since his last run, he is back on a trip and a surface he has raced on, and stall four helps. Winless in five is on the page and we are taking him in spite of it, not around it.
Twenty one go to post for the mile and a half handicap and BEAUVALLON (5:15 Cork, 13/8) is the one we want out of them. His times have taken a jump lately and the base he jumped from was modest, which is exactly how a well handicapped horse looks before anyone has noticed. Four runs to his name, a mark of 71, and a form line of 6478 that gives nobody a reason to be frightened of him. Willie Mullins does better at Cork than his general record suggests, and this is a yard in the sort of form where a 13/8 shot in a twenty one runner handicap is not the stretch it sounds. Stall 15 in a field that size reads like a problem and is not, because the draw does not cost you anything over this trip here.
The 7/1 at Goodwood
Nine runners, a mile on soft, and 7/1 about a horse who has not won in his last five. That is the shape of the bet on REAL GAIN (2:00 Goodwood, 7/1), and it rests on one afternoon. At Redcar on 7 May he was beaten a length, and the horse that did it has since won a class 4. Recent finishing positions have made him look worse than the Redcar race says he is, and there is a real difference between a horse running badly and a horse running into better ones. He has raced over the trip. He has raced on the ground. Twenty nine days since his last outing off a mark of 89, and Harry Vigors takes five pounds off his back. We are not making a case for the yard’s Goodwood record here. We are making a case that a horse out of a race that has produced a class 4 winner should be shorter than 7/1 in a field of nine.
Yesterday, our five headline picks produced one placed horse, Noble Prince at 7/2.
The ground at Beverley is the thing to keep an eye on this afternoon. Heavy over seven and a half furlongs turns a quick race into a slog, and Inns And Out has to find those reserves five days after winning.