Hugo Palmer blog: York 2024 Day three blog

Hugo Palmer is back with an exclusive Coral blog, with the leading trainer running us through his runners on Day three at York this year, as well as Hamilton.

"I think he's brimming with confidence at the moment".

Looking at the weather forecast, it appears that York might get quite a lot of rain over the next 24 hours which will certainly be to Grey Cuban’s advantage, and if the rain didn’t come, then I’m not sure I’d want to run him on ground that people are breaking track records on. He’s won his last two since the hood went on, and he’s just settled and dropped the bit much better in the early part of his races which is really encouraging to see. He particularly impressed me last time when possibly just showing the benefit of getting his head back in front the time before, and I think he’s brimming with confidence at the moment.

We go up in trip here, but I’ve always felt he’d stay this far, and his mother stayed 1m 5f well, so I don’t see any reason why he won’t handle it. Physically he looks like he’ll have no problem with the step up in trip too, and he’s actually looking really well within himself at the moment, so we’ll go there and give it our best shot, and hopefully that rain that’s forecast will arrive.

There was a lot of rain just before Boston Run made his debut at Haydock last month, but he seemed to handle it well, so I’m hoping the soft ground at Hamilton will very much be in his favour. I suspect he’ll be favourite for this, and his main rival Castle Stuart is a horse we’ve beaten before with Hawksbill and Seagulls Eleven. I wouldn’t think Boston Run is as good as Hawksbill or Seagulls Eleven, but he is a lovely horse, and I think he’ll make a very nice handicapper in time. 

Most of our horses improve for their debut effort, so I’m hoping Boston Run will do just that, and fingers crossed he can get his head in front at the second time of asking.

We’ve been waiting for soft ground all summer for L’Astronome, and despite the pretty wet period we have had, we just haven’t been able to run him. He hasn’t run since the May meeting at Chester, which is crazy, but he’s fit and well, and ready to get back on the racecourse. It has taken us a little while to work this horse out since he arrived from France, but we think a mile and a half on soft ground is what he needs, and that’s what he’s going to get here, so there shouldn’t be any excuses for him. 

Unsurprisingly, It’s a very competitive race with £100,000 in the pot, and it is crazy that they’d have this during the Ebor meeting as Hamilton do really deserve to have the limelight when they put this sort of prize money on. As I say, L’Astronome is fresh and in really good order at home, so hopefully he can take a decent chunk of that prize money home with him.

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