Horse racing tipster Owen McMahon shares a few fancies for Betfred Derby day at Epsom on Saturday.
Epsom Downs Tips
The support act for the Betfred Derby – click here for my selections – is the G3 Betfred Diomed Stakes at 12.50,.
Charlie Appleby’s Highland Avenue heads the market at present, but the five-year-old son of Dubawi is plenty short enough in my book.
Despite being the highest-rated horse in the field, he’s consistently fallen short when competing at Group level and, while it was a fair reappearance behind stablemate Adayar in the G3 Gordon Richard Stakes at Newmarket last month, I’m happy to take him on.
Regal Reality is probably the best of these on his day, but he was over 10L behind Highland Avenue in that race at HQ and is hard to advise at eight years old. Similar sentiments apply to Escobar – while Imperial Fighter and Marie’s Diamond have it all to do on form/ratings.
That leaves Roger Varian’s three-year-old KOLSAI.
He looks an exciting prospect and receives a hefty weight-for-age allowance – 12lbs to be precise – against five older rivals.
The son of Oasis Dream needs to return to the form of his second in the Listed Feilden Stakes at Newmarket in April to win this, but there’s every chance he will for a yard that’s hitting form at the perfect time.
Just over three hours later is the Betfred Lester Piggott Handicap – a 1m2f contest for three-year-olds rated 0-100.
14 go to post and you could make a case for several of them – but it’s John & Thady Gosden’s TORITO for me.
The son of Kingman has improved with every run in his career to date, and I think the form of his second in a novice event at Sandown a few weeks back is strong.
He was beat by Artistic Star, who could frank the form big style in the Betfred Derby earlier in the day, but was over 6L clear of the rest of the field which included some nice types for top connections.
I don’t think a mark of 95, in the context of this race, is overly harsh, and I’m expecting a big run under the talented Benoit De La Sayette.
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