That draw bias is an absolute embassment, anyone who backed a horse on the far side had their money stolen basically, at a time when more people will be watching as its the only show in town. Not a good look.
The Windsor Castle is a minefield with a couple of Wesley Ward horses in the mix. Sunshine City took a dickens of a time to get rolling when winning her only race so far. She looked well beaten that day but conjured a run under heavy pressure and the jockey was animated in a fashion that Malcolm Tucker would have summarised on The Thick Of It as, "He was pumping away like Charles Hawtrey on a sleeping Guardsman" Tactical looks very short considering that there are so many winners in the field and he was only third on debut, albeit a highly promising run. It is really the sort of race where you need to be looking for 10/1 or bigger and keeping stakes lower. With that in mind I played early on Mighty Gurkha at 11/1. It was a nothing sort of race he won at Lingfield but he slammed his field by seven and a half lengths, looking like the drop to 5F would be no problem. The colt reared over before the start last time and had to be loaded into the stalls without the jockey, so he did well to win in the style he did. Hopefully he can be finishing strongly today and he is narrowly top rated here on the Racing Post figures that are only a ball park guide at best. I thought the name alluded to the sire being The Gurkha but he is by Sepoy, the Australian sprinter. Chief Little Hawk is an obvious player after making a winning start where he showed plenty of pace. I am surprised that the O'Brien colt is a bigger price than Tactical at 9/2.
Ryan Moore has had Frankie on the line all week so far... Great to watch, poor if your backing Frankie...
The strong end to end pace suited Russian Emperor as he has no gears. 12/1 for the Derby looks a digit short.
Just watched it twice and he still didn't look like winning until the end, lovely ride and won easily
Moore not able to say he has no chance in the Derby because they are desperate to make this one a stallion, Galileo out of Atlantic Jewel.
They seemed to make plenty of use of Juan Elcano today. I'm not sure he stayed the 10F and both he and Kenzai Warrior didn't do a lot for the Guineas form. I had felt First Receiver was short enough as a maiden winner coming in but he improved an went close. Not for the first time Ryan Moore looked that bit stronger than Frankie in a finish and Russian Emperor got the better of it. Berlin Tango had beaten Pyledriver last time and with that horse winning yesterday and Berlin Tango running a very creditable race here, that previous race has probably panned out better than first thought. To be honest though, this didn't look a strong race today and you would have been hoping for a better showing from 2000 Guineas runners dropped to Group 3 class.
Juan elcano was too close to that pace and paid for it, probably ran a bit better than the form book will tell. Kenzai Warrior and New World Tapestry were beaten 16L in Guineas and have practically run to the pound here beaten 5 1/2 and 7L 1/2, with Kenzai Warrior carrying a penalty this time.
This Clerk of Course wants sacking.... the 'jewel' in the crown of British Racing and the draw bias is just a disgrace... !!!
Russian Emperor 8/1 for the Derby in places. That seems hellish value to me. I thought Kipps was coming to win the 2.25 Race but then seemed to hang fire. I might be concerned about that for future reference.
