Hugo Palmer blog: York 2024 Day two blog

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

I didn’t think Connie’s Way did anything wrong when finishing third on her debut at Hamilton earlier this month, but that was probably quite a moderate race, so this will ask a much stiffer question of her. She did get a little bit lost in the middle of the race before keeping on well at the finish, so I expect that she’ll have learnt plenty from that, and the ground and the undulations might have just caught her out slightly as well, so I’m sure she’ll know more this time. 

It is a quick turnaround, but it’s a £500,000 race, so it’s worth having a crack at, and it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if she were able to outrun her odds and pick up a bit of prize money, but I’d be very surprised if she was up to winning a race like this.

Misty Sky will also have to improve markedly to get involved in this, but she is improving with each run, and her owners have spent plenty of money along the way to keep her in this race, so with prize money down to 10^th, it would be nice to win that money back. We were a bit perplexed when she refused to race at Pontefract on her debut back in June, but touch wood, she’s behaved herself since, so hopefully she’ll relax and be on her best behaviour here in such a big field.

As I say, she’s going to have to take a step forward to be competitive here, but she is improving all the time, so hopefully she can grab a bit of that generous prize money that’s on offer.

An opening mark of 83 looks a little bit harsh for Seagolazo, but Kevin Stott did get off him after his win at Chester last time and said he was just going round there in second gear, and he only does what you ask him to do, so there could be plenty more to come from him hopefully. He will have to put a bit more effort in in this better class of race, but as I say, we haven’t got to the bottom of him yet, so there should be more under the bonnet.

It’s a very competitive race with a few nice types up near the top of the market, so it won’t be easy, but I do like this horse, so I’m hopeful he can get competitive.

King Of Angels runs in the same race at Seagolazo, and I’d just worry that the handicapper has him a bit high in the weights to be winning a race like this. He struggled at Goodwood off his opening mark of 83 last time, and he’s only been dropped a pound for that effort, so he might just need to come down a bit more in the weights before he’s winning again.

He’s in good order at home anyway, so we’ll give it our best shot, but he is going to have to take a big step forward from that Goodwood effort last time if he’s going to get involved.

Prince Of Zenda just seems to love Newcastle, so I’m delighted that he’s got into this race, and I think he goes there with a really good chance. He ran very well over 5f here last time when finishing second behind Bergerac, and he broke the track record with Misty Grey over this course and distance a few months ago, so I suspect he’ll be quite prominent in the market for all that it is a very competitive race.

He’s a tricky enough horse to place off his handicap mark because he needs cut in the ground if he’s going to run on turf, or he needs to be on the all-weather, and as we know, there are a shortage of good races on the all-weather at this time of year. I was hoping he was going to run at Wolverhampton in the racing league a few weeks ago, but sadly he wasn’t selected, so hopefully he can show everybody what he can do this time around.

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