5:40 hampton court
the sectional virgins will tell you kings gambit can't be beaten and he has been hammered all morning, now approaching 11/8 and that is starting to look short enough on his first try in graded company. he's a nice big colt that is certain to improve, he was very impressive on seasonal reappearance in a competitive handicap and he already has form with one of the other market principles in bracken's laugh having beaten that horse giving him 6lb but that was bracken's laugh's first career run and he has improved a significant amount himself since then.
he was arguably unlucky not to win at chester behind capulet who got first run on a course notorious for such things. he picked up smartly to try and run the o'brien horse down and lost nothing in defeat. he's been freshened up a bit since then but he looks a horse all about speed and i would prefer to see him dropped back in trip or at least on an easier course.
the well fancied horse that day at chester was jayarebe and although he lost, it is pretty easy to see why. he is a strong, stridey, lengthy, relentless gallopy type rather than a horse who is ever going to enjoy chester and i am more than willing to give him another chance after routing a solid field at newmarket on his seasonal reappearance, running on very strongly once he met the rising ground, keeping on through the line. he's not drawn well here in 12 for a horse that likes to be up on the pace but that is priced in and i think he's undervalued at roughly 12 on the exchange or 9/1 each way first four. he soundly beat caviar heights that day and there is no real reason that form will be reversed and the likes of bellum justum and portland have shown their limitations in recent outings so i don't think they are big dangers if jayarebe is back to his gallopy best.
the interesting runner is first look. he only has a maiden win to his name but he ran second in a group one in france the last day. that form with ghostwriter and diego velazquez ties in with the likes of capulet, who beat bracken's laugh and al musmak here so we can roughly judge how good it was and the answer is meh, he's short here imo. he's unraced on ground anywhere near as fast as this and the track is going to be very different to anything he's seen previously. his form prior to the group one second is average at best and he is very flattered by his rating right now but he will likely have to run up to something like that to win here, which i don't think he is capable of.
i'm fading the market in basically every race today. i am such a dumb cuck.
