3:05 coventry

the guessiest of all guessing games. 11/2 the field of once raced two year olds. good fucking luck. cowardofthecountry is fav because he beat whistlejacket fairly comfortably on debut but that horse pretty clearly needed the run and or the drop in trip that he got on second career start when bolting up from a next time out winner. on paper the form is strong but entirely different circumstances are the reason that form looks excellent. could be good nonetheless and stayed the six furlongs strongly that day. big horse that will likely improve over time. paying a premium because of connections.

good battle between andesite and yah mo be there on debut with the latter looking incredibly green and juvenile so i'm a little surprised to see the former roughly half the price when one looked like they would improve much more for the run than the other. form of that race is as decent as you could hope it to have turned out having only been a month ago. both will have learned a lot from that and would expect both to be sharper for it. interesting line of form with the 5th from that race who ran behind another in here the next day.

the benefit of experience wasn't enough for proud to be fox when racing behind catalyse the last day and the winner was very impressive. he was quite professional, apart from an untidy start, and that is in line with how richard fahey has had his two year olds ready this season so i would not expect a bunch of improvement based on fitness but natural two year old improvement from race one to race two should be enough to see this horse involved in the race and i would be surprised if he wasn't. one of two i'm taking against the field at 11/1+.

the other is arran who is priced more in the 25-30 range and that looks ridiculous. a big, striking colt who was keen and green the last day but he strode out really well up the hill at newmarket having picked up quickly to put a couple of lengths between himself and the field. he was benefit of track position that day and they were closing on him late over 5f but he was never in any trouble and never asked a serious question. plenty of size and scope with this horse and interestingly two horses he beat on debut run again here, both of who won their next starts, and both are shorter in the market by 10+ points and for the life of me i can't work out why. arran had them readily covered the last day and with natural improvement i can't see any reason that he is wouldn't be able to do the same again. the draw is not ideal and he might find himself trapped on the outside without cover but that's not enough to warrant this sort of price. he looks like a lovely horse. 

catalyse could be a very smart horse and should be a fair bit closer to the head of the market while arran is overpriced and has plenty of scope to improve. don't sleep on rashabar at 50/1+. he's a maiden with an awful lot of ability. behind two very smart horses on debut before being drawn widest at chester on his second start.