Andy Holding's Tuesday Racing Tips

AUGUSTUS CAESAR (NAP) (best price 13-8) was heavily involved in what was probably a hot race for the track and grade at Southwell last time out and having come out the other side of that contest with what appears a pretty favourable handicap mark, he’s fancied to take advantage of the lenient stance adopted by the assessor.

As is often the case over the minimum trip at the Nottinghamshire venue, the pace was strong from the outset 29 days ago and having broken well from his potentially unfavourable wide draw in stall 10, David O’Meara’s colt gave himself every chance by being able to sit on the shoulders of the pace at the halfway stage. Keeping up the tempo all the way to the line, the son of Speighstown only just failed to get the better of the more-experienced Maystar, but with the time figure pretty smart and the front three well clear of the rest, the form looks fairly solid. Indeed, his conqueror has gone on to finish a creditable runner-up in a valuable sales race at the Curragh against 25 rivals and the third, Strong Power, is regarded as one of George Scott’s better two-year-olds. Looking at their respective ratings of 80 and 86, it’s hard to see how, having split the pair, those who dish out the marks could come to the conclusion of a rating of 70 for Augustus Caesar and it’s not as if they’ve just had one piece of evidence to work on. His previous effort when third at Pontefract was up against two juveniles who’ve gone on to take part in much tougher assignments and are now both rated in the 90’s and having bagged the favourable inside draw today in stall one, an alert beginning, similar to the one he showed last time, would put him in the box seat to strike for home off the final turn.

DESERT FOX (best price 7-2) has developed into a proper course specialist in recent times and following another virtuoso performance here last time out, Mike Murphy’s gelding is a confident choice to go well again.

Often slowly into stride in the early stages, the son of Foxwedge went through a similar routine through the first couple of furlongs here last time until making a move turning into the home straight. Once levelling up for line, the five-year-old really kicked in the turbo and in coming from last to first, he somehow managed to pull off an unlikely victory. In doing so, he also posted an excellent overall time to match his impressive set of backend sectionals (best on the seven-race card) and in only being given a slight adjustment in the ratings, he still gets a chance to race against a similar set of opponents in the same grade. With form figures of 4113121 over tonight’s C&D, it’s hard to see Desert Fox not going well at a track that clearly plays into his strengths.