The Two Year Old Trophy at Redcar is always a very competitive and difficult race to find the winner of but I have a rule of making sure I get double figure odds to make sure it is worth a small punt to have an interest and potentially be rewarded with a decent return from the tricky 6F race for youngsters. The early favourite this year is Tim Easterby's Vintage Brut, who won his first two races. His form after that was a bit hit and miss and it seems his best runs have been on soft. With the going at Redcar currently Good to Firm (Good in places) it would suggest the favourite is going to need some rain to warrant his 7/1 Fav odds. Obviously there are many contenders but my eye was caught by Hello Youmzain, who is trained by Kevin Ryan. This trainer does pretty well with these valuable 2YO races and Hello Youmzain made a promising start to his career when overcoming a slow start to win easily by 4 lengths at Carlisle. That was not a good race but on his next start he was a little unlucky going down a short head to San Donato, a Roger Varian horse thought good enough to run at Royal Ascot on his second start. Hello Youmzain went down by only a short head and although San Donato reopposes on Saturday, Hello Youmzain will be 6 lbs better in this time, after conceding that amount in their previous meeting. There is variation in Hello Youmzain's odds across the boards and I felt Coral's offer of 14/1 was too good to resist. Ladbrokes were going 12/1, however most firms are shorter and I noticed Paddy Power were only 6/1. I feel Hello Youmzain may go off favourite for this, with some winners coming from his previous race. I fail to see how 14/1 and 12/1 can last. Hello Youmzain 14/1 Anyone else got an early fancy for this one?
Well, three and a half hours later, Coral have cut Hello Youmzain to 8/1 and Ladbrokes have cut him to 7/1. Best price is now 10/1 with Skybet. I can't see that price lasting long.
OddDog, as a Listed Race, the Two Year old Trophy field is formed to the maximum field size of 23 by letting the highest rated horses have priority over the lower rated entries. The really low rated enries have no chance of getting in. If two or more are on the same lowest rating to qualify, those horses will be randomly ballotted out leaving the one horse who will fill the last spot in the field. My selection Hello Youmzain, will be fine to qualify I reckon. You get your money back on ballotted out bets anyway, as a horse cannot win a race it has been ballotted out of to comply with safety limits. Vintage Brut is the highest rated runner in the race, probably the reason for him being favourite. Skybet also cut Hello Youmzain from 10/1 to 7/1 now and San Donato has become pretty much level with him now, after having been nearly half his odds when I started the thread. I hope some people secured the bigger odds available earlier. I just felt he was too big at 14/1.
Vintage Brut is under the same ownership as Well Done Fox who is rated 6lbs superior. They are obviously keen to land the pot. The latter would be my preference.
Stick, It's a very odd situation with with Well Done Fox and Vintage Brut. I was using the Racing Post website and they use their ratings and the weight difference to have Vintage Brut six pounds higher on their figures. As you say, Well Done Fox has the higher official rating by six, on 107 to 101 but the racecard shows that Well Done Fox has to concede 7 lbs to Vintage Brut, so Vintage Brut is theoretically 1lb higher on ratings for this race when taking the weight concession into account. Hope that explains why I said Vintage Brut was, in the terms of this race at least, higher rated.
Quite a few of the prominent ones in the betting are not in the 23 who made the cut, including, sadly, Hello Youmzain and Well Done Fox. I'm a bit puzzled by that. I don't really fancy any of those who made the field for Saturday and notice that Kevin Ryan relies on the maiden Rathbone.
