Saturday racing tips: Andy Ayres picks out his best bet for tomorrow's ITV racing and has the latest gossip from the tracks
A MAN and his bag caused a stir at Lingfield on Tuesday evening.
This fella looked like an extra from one of Ray Mears’ walkabouts and was lugging a rucksack stuffed with more readies than Biggsy and his pals pinched off the rattler back in 1963.
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He proceeded to ladle the dough out like a half-cut dinner lady, the object of his attention being Paul Cole’s notoriously one-paced Arctic Sea (5-2 to 5-4).
He managed to deposit £5,000 on Coley’s far from wonder-horse before the gelding did his usual and impersonated a geezer stuck in quicksand from the two-pole.
Our hero quickly exited stage left, leaving the bookies’ hods a fair bit fuller than they had been half an hour earlier.
It felt positively Baltic at Epsom on Wednesday, where rumour had it that Ryan Moore reckoned Cape Of Good Hope (7-4 to 4-1) was a couple of gym visits short of peak fitness.
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Cue a market slide that would have sent the city boys running for cover, before the horse battled like a badger to beat Cap Francais.
This isn’t the first time Ryan has got his sums wrong this spring and it seems his idea of a successful nap is grabbing 40-winks while Bargain Hunt is on the box.
Mick Attwater hit a home run for the locals when Just That Lord (7-1 to 5-1) stuck his neck out to land a punt in the 5f sprint.
Big Mick is putting the horse on simmer until the Dash on Derby Day, and reported that his owners have just turned down a £200,000 offer for runaway Bath winner The Cruising Lord.
James Doyle looks half a yard off the pace and had a mare on Mark Johnston’s well fancied Mildenberger in the always competitive City And Suburban Handicap.
Johnston was making all the right noises about this one, but he got marooned in rear after stumbling out the gates which left luckless Doyler looking a bit of a lemon in the straight.
Clive Cox is one of the good guys but he took the mick here, withdrawing Al Jellaby at the eleventh hour because he’d found an easier opening at Doncaster today.
That did punters no favours and the stewards quite rightly got the hump and fined Coxy £140.
Lord knows why Kempton’s executive decided it was a shrewd idea to run a series of meetings over the sticks this late in the season.
A ridiculously skinny 23 runners turned up for the seven race jumps card there on Thursday, yet the track still felt it was right and dandy to charge Billy Bunters a score to get in.
That works out about a dollar a horse, which left plenty of regulars hot under the collar.
By the way, there are positive vibes from Roger Varian’s yard about the three-year-old Surfman.
He’s entered in everything bar the boat race, but could start off at lowly Newcastle on Tuesday and is definitely one to keep your peepers on.
Saturday Selection
DEFOE (1.40 Newbury) is unbeaten in three starts here and has a cracking record when fresh.
Rocket Roger could be on the mark with FUJAIRA PRINCE (6.45) up at Doncaster today, while George Scott’s CHATTANOOGA BOY (2.15) should be sharp enough to win at Leicester.
Jolly James Tate’s HEY GAMAN (2.45) is fancied to surprise a couple of big guns in the feature race there.
This hard-nut was beaten a gnat’s wotsit in the French 2,000 Guineas last spring and will be bang at home over today’s track and trip.
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