Andy Holding's Thursday Racing Tips

RIGOLETTO (best price 5-1) may be lacking a little experience, but with the likelihood of more to come and having already proven himself on soft ground twice over, Luca Cumani’s promising colt can hopefully make some sort of impact on his first start in handicap company. Running with plenty of encouragement first time out in a decent maiden at Newbury, the son of Zoffany made the expected strides forward by taking a similar contest at Yarmouth next time out. Held up just off the pace, he found a nice turn of foot when called upon for his effort a furlong out and on the evidence of that display, he doesn’t appear too badly treated off a mark of 79.

MININGROCKS (best price 6-4) is a fairly straightforward conveyance in a race of this nature in the sense he’s one-dimensional point and shoot front runner and that should make life pretty easy for his pilot Ger O’Neill who knows his mount extremely well. The pair teamed up in August last year when they made all the running to score easily at Ayr and similar tactics were executed to nicety two weeks later at Beverley. Repeating the dose the next time the partnership came under the microscope over today’s C&D two starts ago, it’s pretty clear they know each other’s game inside out and racing back at a track that has suited many front runners in the past, Declan Carroll’s inmate is strongly fancied to complete a hat trick under his optimum conditions.

HAMLEY (best price 8-1) has run really well in two very competitive handicaps of late and looks to be way overpriced based on the evidence of both those performances. After disappointing on her first outing of the campaign, she caught the eye doing some good late work in a keenly-contested event won by Secret Wizard at Gowran and then two weeks later, she ran even better when fifth a hot fillies handicap behind New Direction. Not only has the winner of that race gone in again, the likes of Dragon Fei and Light That have both gone on to advertise the form with subsequent victories and hailing from a stable in cracking form at present, there’s a decent chance Peter Fahey’s inmate can follow suit.

BOBABOUT (NAP) (best price 3-1) went into his latest encounter with the look of a well-handicapped horse following his recent exploits over hurdles, but unfortunately, things just didn’t quite pan out for Jessica Harrington’s charge as expected. Held up way off the pace in a race dominated by the well-ridden front runner, Eight And Bob, the Big Bad Bob gelding never got the chance to land a meaningful blow at the leader due to him being held up behind traffic for majority of the home straight. Once he did get out in the clear, he finished to such a degree it was easy to draw to the conclusion he would have won under normal circumstances, and he gets an immediate chance to put that theory to the test seven days on in what appears on paper a very similar race.