Tuesday Racing Tips from Andy Holding

Quite rightly, Northern Spirit deserves plenty of respect having his recent form tied up alongside subsequent dual winner Dark Trooper, but his price does appear to be a slight overreaction and, as a result, SPIRIT OF APPLAUSE (best price 9/2) has almost become the forgotten horse of the race despite strong claims of his own.

His only poor run, if you could call in that, came when ninth of 21 in the big three-year-old sprint handicap at York behind the massively improved Quinault three starts ago but other than that, he has run to a very high level so far this season.

The form of his second to JM Jungle at Haydock has been regally advertised by the winner at Goodwood and although only fifth of 10 at Newmarket last time out, the time figure of the race suggested he ran close to a career high.

Additionally, his effort when runner-up to Funny Story over this C&D doesn’t look too bad either considering how well the winner ran at Goodwood last time from a bad draw and with that display also going along way to prove his liking for today’s track, it would come as something of a shock if Tim Easterby’s inmate doesn’t have a huge say in the final outcome.

Both CRYSTAL DELIGHT (best price 9/1) and PARIS LIGHTS (best price 18/1) have questions to answer following disappointing performances last time out, but as the pair have genuine excuses to fall back on, they are afforded another opportunity to recapture something verging their best form on today’s more favourable surface.

The former began the campaign with a huge amount of encouragement only to squander all the good work with a couple of desperate efforts more recently, so he does come with a certain amount of trepidation attached. Way too keen for his own good at York two starts ago, he proceeded to completely blow the start at Sandown last time out, and since then, connections have resorted to gelding the son of New Approach in the hope he might have a new outlook on his work.

However, go back to any of his three all-weather runs in the winter, including his easy victory at Lingfield and William Jarvis’ inmate would have a decent chance of going well in a race of this nature, so at his double-figure morning quotes, he is worth a small interest to see whether he can return to his promising profile.

The latter plain and simply never went a yard on the soft ground at Sandown last time out and it was a similar case when he ran on turf at York two starts previously. Either side of those two poor performances, George Boughey’s gelding has the sort of top-quality form on the all-weather to suggest that today’s surface is when he is at his happiest and at 20-1, he is also worth a shy at the stumps based on his run behind Sea The Casper in a very strongly run affair.