brown advisory

pretty obvious ballyburn isn't quite as good over fences as he was over hurdles but he's still good, and certainly still good enough to beat this fairly ordinary bunch of chasers but the price is tight enough up in trip for the first time. he was very good at 2m, very good at 2m4f and he is likely to get this trip and while he doesn't necessarily need to improve to beat them i do think there are other horses in here better suited to the trip at a stiff track. he beat croke park over 2m5f in fairly testing conditions, certainly not the offered description of yielding, but he beat him through pure flat speed on a flat track so i wouldn't read too much in to how that line of form translates with common opponents over staying trips. i'm happy to be against at 1.7x.

think better days ahead is a fair bet to reverse that hurdles form with dancing city from the back end of last season. the race was run at no pace and better days ahead cruised in to the lead, got outpaced turning for home and then ran on again late. he's strengthened up a good deal through the summer and improved his form in a couple of graded chases early around christmas and early in the year, probably finding himself out in front much sooner than he wanted to be when almost getting chased down by a horse that will stay 4m in time in stellar story. think there is still a fair bit of improvement to come from this horse in staying chases given how weak he was physically earlier in his career. 10/1 in places, some 9's out there, more of a 6's chance for me. 

gorgeous tom did look like he wanted a bit further when flying home over 2m4f the last day but to my eye he just got outpaced in a slow race and as stayed the trip strongly as he so often does, flattering to deceive in a sense. i'm not sure how much this trip will really benefit him and he needs to improve a stone on everything he's shown to go ahead and win this. quai de bourbon was a well fancied horse in the martin pipe behind better days ahead last year and that race has a tendency to throw up some good stayers for the future but he's still young and inexperienced, didn't look natural in his first two chase starts. there will be big days in his future but i'm not certain he's ready for this right now.