A busy sporting weekend had its ups and downs for Betcirca followers. Tiggy Wiggy’s brilliant win at Newbury covered our expenses on the horses while Jim Furyk gave us a handsome each-way return at odds of 70-1 in the British Open.
The racing is poor this week before the big Ascot card on Saturday featuring the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. I take it that it is no longer sponsored by the Oppenheimer family as the “Diamond” seems to have been removed.
The favourite is Sir Michael Stoute’s Telescope after slaughtering his rivals at Royal Ascot by seven lengths. There is a real sense of deja-vu about this horse as he is trying to repeat Harbinger’s victory in 2010 in the same colours. No sooner had Highclere believed that they had the best horse in the world than he was injured and packaged off to stud. There have been some strange King George’s in recent years and that was certainly one of them with Derby and Arc winner Workforce running a total stinker.
Telescope has been built up and knocked down a couple of times already in his short career. He was always struggling to make the Derby line-up last year and Stoute eventually gave up the ghost and then defended his charge after a shock defeat at Haydock. You would have thought that a nine length defeat at the hands of Noble Mission would have put paid to the “wonder horse” treatment but we are back here again after Ascot.
We will never know what John Gosden thought of Sheikh Hamdan’s decision to pull Taghrooda out of the Irish Oaks on Sunday but I’m guessing that he was not best pleased. JG now has three runners here if the supplemented Eagle Top and Derby third Romsdal take their places. All of the evidence suggests that Taghrooda would have won at the Curragh and she has a big chance here. Eagle Top needs to come out and prove that it was no fluke at Ascot while Romsdal looked more of a Leger horse at Epsom.
A more likely threat to the favourite is Mukhadram after his well-deserved Eclipse victory. This will be his first start over a mile and a half but he has every chance of getting it. He settled well at Sandown and there could well be pacemakers in here which will give him a good lead. You would just worry about the last furlong or so. The bookies aren’t giving much away with the front two so it may be worth going each-way Mukhadram at 12-1.
Mukhadram @12-1 BetVictor
Each-way ¼ odds, 1,2,3
Betfair:
Bet on Henrik Stenson to become the BMW PGA Championship Winner.
Paddypower:
Back Australia to take the Ashes home with them.
Betway:
Back Rafael Nadal to become the Mens French Open Winner.
Coral:
Back One For Arthur to win the Grand National.
Bet365:
Back Mexico to win the Confederations Cup.
