Hugo Palmer blog: 'She deserves to be favourite'

Hugo Palmer is back with his latest exclusive blog for Coral, with the leading trainer running us through his runners at Newbury, Ripon, Newmarket, Doncaster and Haydock.

Several of the runners at the head of the ante-post betting didn’t stand their ground for the Weatherby’s Super Sprint, including the favourite Ain’tNobody, so our filly is now favourite, which can only be a positive. This hasn’t really been the long term plan with her, the plan was to earn some black type, which we’ve done, and that’s why we came here rather than the Duchess Of Cambridge at the July meeting, and the extra time between races was also another factor in waiting for this race.

Her sales price means she gets in here off a low weight, so another positive, and she’s versatile in terms of ground. We’re very well treated against second favourite, Vingegaard, receiving nine pounds and being only rated four pounds lower, although on a similar theme Kaadi is a pound well in with us, having finished just in front of us at York in May. If only it was as simple as a game of maths! 

She’s really well, this is a wonderful prize pot to go after, and we’re delighted to have Oisin Murphy ride. We were only a neck behind Arabian Dusk at Newmarket in June, and she went on to the win that Duchess Of Cambridge, so she has form in the book and I hope she can grab as much of this big prize money as possible.

It’s hard to believe in a summer where all it seems to have done is rain, but L’Astronome just hasn’t had has his preferred soft going, and as a result has been declared and then made a non-runner on several occasions, including at Epsom and Ascot. I even fear it may dry out here, but hopefully they might get some more rain. He needs to run, he’s ready to run, but we are ground dependent if he’s not to just have a look at some more of the country’s motorway network!

The Waco Kid ran really well here at Newbury to finish fourth on debut, and normal improvement could see him be very competitive here, albeit this does look a stronger race. That said, they are largely newcomers he’s taking on, so plenty of unknown quantities, but of the ones to have run, we have the highest Racing Post rating.  

We have Oisin riding for us again, which I’m pleased about as he could have ridden for Andrew Balding. There are some powerful owners represented with newcomers, so we’ll have to see how we fare against them, but I hope we have a winning chance.

This is a strong looking listed contest with four fillies rated over 100 and ours the lowest rated in the field, but for all that she is the lowest rated, she hadn’t done much wrong until she went to Goodwood. She was just a bit keen and silly that day, she was never herself and so we made the decision to miss Royal Ascot and give her a bit of time off. I think she will improve for the step up in trip and she works in a hood at home so we've left that on her here.  

We just want to see her relax here and settle into her race, I do think she's up to this listed class at some stage it's just whether we're at that stage now. She's got her black type for finishing third in the Pretty Polly, so now the job is to try to win a race of this stature, whether that is now or in the future only time will tell.

King Of Angels has run well enough in his two starts to date, he wasn’t beaten far by Columnist at Chester and that one has run well in two Group Twos since. However, his biggest problem has been his refusal to behave in the stalls, and twice now that has meant he’s not raced.  

We've put him through the stalls at home this week and he behaved himself, and I think the seven furlongs trip will suit him, as will any drying ground. I’ll be nervous watching him at the start but hopefully he will be OK, and if he runs, he could run well.  

Boston Run is a nice horse who I think will want a mile soon enough but we're starting him off over seven furlongs here as he is ready to run. I think he's getting a little bit bored being stuck at home. He’s a very nice looking horse, and I think he could run very well although he will also learn plenty from his first run.

Our final runner is Havanarama, who has done very little wrong and deserves to get his head in front but faces the problem that because he's done very little wrong, he’s got to win off a mark of 74. I know that isn’t exactly high grade stuff, but to win off it here, he will need things to go right, even in a small field.

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