Review of Newmarket July Meeting 2007

A super three days racing at Newmarket where the weather was reasonably kind. The Group 1 Falmouth Stakes on Wednesday was reduced to seven runners when Speciosa was withdrawn. Simply Perfect was given a fine front running ride by Johnny Murtagh and won quite easily. Nannina and Red Evie were both very disappointing. In the larger fields there did seem to be an advantage to those horses drawn high to middle. In the Lancashire Oaks, Turbo Linn was a surprise and easy winner. She will no doubt win again. After the fifth race the going was changed to good to firm.
On Thursday Winker Watson overcame a slow start from a low draw to get up and beat River Proud in the Group 2 July Stakes. In the Group 2 Princess of Wales Stakes the quirky Papul Bull was a surprise winner to most. Lucarno was fancied by the blogger but ran as though this was one race too many in a short space of time.
Friday produced a great days racing made all the more pleasurable by meeting up with old school chums Colin and Peter. Winners were again hard to come by and on the straight course the fastest ground seemed to be on the far side. Amadeus Wolf was disappointing again in Group 1 July Cup. Sakhee’s Secret is the new kid on the block and proved a high class winner as predicted by Timeform in their race card comments. Thank goodness I took notice of them and managed to recoupe my stake money on the days racing.
In the Bunbury Cup Handicap both Intrepid Jack and Dabbers Ridge ran poor races. Mine met with trouble in running but would not have troubled the winner and placed horses anyway. There seemed to be plenty of confidence in these three horses beforehand and they should be followed next time.
Saturday at York saw Charlie Tokyo handle the very heavy ground in the John Smith’s Cup better than anything else.
On Sunday the ground made the difference again when Peeping Fawn reversed Epsom placings with Light Shift in the Irish Oaks. Henry Cecil had expressed his fears about Light Shift handling the heavy ground beforehand. Johnny Murtagh came in for the ride on Peeping Fawn.
The next big meeting will be Ascot for the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes closely followed by glorious Goodwood which commences on Tuesday 31st July and runs through to Saturday 4th August 2007. It will be interesting to see if Authorized lines up at Ascot.
For all the racecards visit the Sporting Life.

For all the runners and riders with the jockey's colours go to Paddy Power and click on "Horse Racing".