Andy Holding's Friday Racing Tips

WAKE UP HARRY (best price 13-8) has created a favourable impression on both his two starts to date and with his latest success carrying plenty of clout based on the speed figure he posted, Simon Dow’s colt just about gets the vote ahead of two similarly promising types in the shape of Rafiki and Rogue Force.

Not particularly well fancied on his debut at Kempton, hence his 22-1 SP, the son of Le Havre defied his position in the market with a display of some promise and if it wasn’t for the late thrust of the more experienced Bill Peyto, he would have hit the bullseye at the first time of asking. Gathering all that knowledge up and carrying it forward to his next outing over today’s C&D two months ago, he was once again sharp out of the gates and this time he had the decisive turn of foot at the right moment to skip clear of his field rounding the home bend. Not relinquishing his advantage, he kept on in tidy fashion to record a comfortable success and with a similar ride very likely on his return to the Surrey venue, he should prove a tough nut to crack.

As we saw at Doncaster last week, BARD OF BRITTANY (best price 4-1) is fairly useful at this level when the ground is in his favour, so providing today’s track doesn’t receive too much rain throughout the course of the day, there’s a decent chance Sheena West’s seven-year-old can repeat the dose.

Runner-up behind Plumpton specialist Mr Jack back in January, the son of Sayif made little impression in two subsequent jumper’s bumpers, but both runs seem to have served the purpose of keeping him fit and his eye on the ball as he returned to the turf with a bang on Town Moor just seven days ago. In what turned out to be a very strongly run race for the grade, he stayed on very powerfully in the latter stages to score going away by nine lengths and with the galloping nature of the track and better ground the two key factors to his change in fortunes, you can understand why connections are willing to roll the dice again with today’s venue having amazingly missed most of the rainfall that has plagued the rest of the country this week.