It’s a Sunday with a feast for everyone this weekend in both quality and quantity. With two informative meetings at York and Fontwell enough to wet the appetite, the historic Listowel Harvest Festival begins as well. Here are the best bets for the three meetings in the UK and Ireland this Sunday.
2:00 Fontwell
Bold Image
We start the day with the opening race at the East Sussex venue, and it looks like it’ll pay dividends to follow the Skelton brothers with BOLD IMAGE in the NetBet Sport Mares’ Handicap Hurdle.
Team Skelton have been in flying form this season, with jockey Harry and trainer Dan both spearheading their respective championships, and they have had a knack of rejuvenating new recruits.
Bold Image perfectly fits the bill. The mare looked to be out of love with racing but the transfer from Suzy Smith’s yard to Skelton reaped the rewards with a facile success at Newton Abbott. The mare hasn’t been penalised heavily in the weights for that win and it’s worth to back her to strike and take her record to 2-2 with the Skelton’s.
2:55 York
Limato
The feature race of the day on the Knavesmire is the Ryedale House Garrowby Stakes and it looks to be a penalty kick for the resurgent LIMATO.
Henry Candy’s stable star had looked a spent force in his first three starts this season, but roared back to form last time out in a similar contest at Newmarket.
He had the option of taking on the crème of the crop at Haydock in the Sprint Cup the day before, but the heavy ground predicated at Merseyside has already scuppered his chances there. With good to firm ground at York and only five rivals in opposition, Limato looks to be a group horse running in a very winnable listed contest.
3:15 Listowel
Salty Boy
The tip from the first day of the Harvest Festival lies within the lottery of the 13-runner Charleville Cheese Maiden Hurdle, and SALTY BOY can score for the other Mullins combination.
The Mags Mullins-trained five-year-old has had minimal flaws in his career so far, with a three-mile point-to-point victory to go with a third-place finish on his hurdles debut last month. The form of that race has been significantly franked since, and the winner of that race looks to be a very useful horse so Salty boy was by no means disgraced.
He will appreciate the step up to three miles – his Point-To-Point success was over that distance – and in a race with many exposed types, Salty Boy should break his duck over hurdles here.