Andy Holding's Thursday Racing Tips

ALLEGIANT (NAP) (best price 2-1) has already struck up a nice affinity with the unique nature of tonight’s course and he’s fancied to add to his only career success back at the scene of that victory here last season. Extremely good on the numbers that day back in September, Stuart Williams’ gelding ended up being disappointing on his final start of the campaign, but on the evidence of what we’ve seen of him so far this term, things are definitely going in the right direction. A couple of useful placed efforts was rather nullified by a poor performance on unsuitable soft ground at Sandown next time, but his bounced back to something like his best on a return to the Surrey slopes two weeks ago. Off the back of a very strong pace set by Mr Scaramanga, the son of City Zip pushed his main market rival all the way to the line and with the pair pulling nicely clear of the rest, the form looks particularly solid. Likely to track the speed again this evening, hopefully the four-year-old will prove too strong for his six rivals at the business end.

A trappy three-year-old handicap for which all seven runners can be given some sort of squeak, but the two that stand out the most at the morning odds are SUPER TREAT (best price 3-1) and MIA MENTO (best price 5-1).

The former took a while to finally get off the mark, but when he did at Fairyhouse just four days ago, he did it with quite a bit of swagger. Always travelling well, Timothy Doyle’s colt put the race to bed with a useful turn of foot and with his confidence bound to have been boosted by that smooth success, he arrives here ready to rock and roll in his first handicap off what appears a fair mark.

The latter might turn out to be a little more competitive than of late now that she has a sights lowered significantly and it’s also worth pointing out that some of her best efforts previously have come over tonight’s track. Not quite up to the standard required for Group 3 level, the daughter of Casamento ran a fair race on her first start in handicap company at the Curragh last time out and with the runner-up, Surrounding, going on to prove the value of that form line in a listed contest next time, she must have some sort of chance here off a mark of 88.