Kevin Stott’s Blog: I could be Bolting up at Newbury

After riding four winners at the Newmarket July Festival and following up that form with a win at Beverley this week, I’m having a good time of it at the moment!

I’m really hoping now that my good luck doesn’t drop and I can bring in another winner or two this weekend from a nice selection of rides at Newbury on Friday and Saturday.

Newbury, Friday

Dasho Lennie is first in a handicap over 1m4f (3.35pm). For a three-year-old, he’s pretty lightly raced, having had only five starts to date. He’s been very consistent this season and has never been out of the placings, so the handicapper has kept him on the same mark of 80. This is another competitive race, and we’re expecting beautiful ground, although he seems pretty versatile going-wise.

I think he’ll be able to continue his run of consistent results.

My second ride of the day is Secret Shadow in the fillies’ handicap (4.10pm). Now with Paul Nicholls, having spent three seasons with Andrew Balding, she’s only raced once for her new yard. She would prefer a bit of juice in the ground, but – as we’re expecting the ground to be so lovely – she shouldn’t have an issue with it here.

When she first ran for Paul in April, she just didn’t quite stay the two miles, so a drop back down to 1m5f should be perfect. Her mark has dropped down a couple of pounds to 87, which is no bad thing for her, and she is really fit and well. She should run a decent race and is not without a chance. I hope she can bounce back to better form.

Newbury, Saturday

I’m looking forward to Annaf in the Group 3 Hackwood over six furlongs (3.00pm). He’s a hold-up horse who’s been absolutely running out of his skin throughout the winter and into the Turf season. He ran a huge race in the King’s Stand at Royal Ascot for third place and, if he can reproduce that run, he should be the one to beat here. He wasn’t disgraced by any means at Sandown earlier this month; he had a horrible draw and Sandown is not the right track for him, but he still managed to finish fourth of 10.

Hopefully, at Newbury, there will be lots of pace on offer from Diligent Harry and fingers crossed we get the gaps when and where we need them. He’s running really well in top-level races so he deserves a win now. He’s got to be my best chance of the weekend.

Next I’ll ride La Guarida in the five-furlong Super Sprint (3.35pm). She’s drawn right out on the wing in two and, annoyingly, it’s looking like middle to high draws are the most favourable at Newbury currently, so this draw is a big shame.

We’re down in trip from last time at seven furlongs, but I know she has plenty of speed, as shown by her brilliant win at Goodwood in May. The ground was pretty hard that day, and we think that she may have been a bit jarred up after that, hence she was not her best at all come Ascot in June.

This time I want to see her jump and travel well, and hopefully we’ll see her going back in the right direction.

Then there’s Mr Wonderful in the six-furlong Novice (4.10pm). He’s a Breeze-Up horse who had his first run last week at Doncaster, when he was a little bit slow away, which put him further back than he probably wanted to be. Bad interference later in the race ruined any chance he had of getting through some of the traffic, but he’ll still have learnt plenty and Pat Dobbs didn’t give him too hard a race.

His home work has been showing some promise, so let’s hope he can leave that messy race behind him.

Last, but far from least, is Maman Joon in the 1m2f fillies’ novice (4.45pm). She steps down in grade for this, having last run in a Group 2 at Royal Ascot and running a huge race for fourth place in the Oaks a few weeks earlier. Richard Hannon thinks a lot of her and, while her run at Ascot was disappointing, it was too bad to be true for her, so we can put a line through that.

We think now that the Oaks must have taken more out of her than we realised, so we’ve given her a nice time since Ascot, slowly building back up for this race, and it’d be good to see her get her head in front.

She’ll be taking on some inexperienced fillies here, who could be anything, and we just want her to regain some of her confidence.