13:05 Lingfield – Mystikana @ 7/2
Ride The Lightning has been made the early favourite for this race and a short-priced one at that. However, despite finishing behind that rival at Kempton recently, Mystikana is the one to be on as she bids to reverse the form.
This lightly raced filly was beaten just over two lengths by Ride The Lightning last time out, but she found herself poorly placed, giving away first run. On top of that, the distance that day probably wasn’t ideal and the step up to 12f here looks very much in favour.
Since winning comfortably over C&D back in July, Marcos Tregoning’s filly hasn’t been aggressively campaigned and looks as though she could be on the up. Her two starts since reappearing have seen her finish 4th on both occasions and it’s easy to assume that connections might just have been waiting for the right race to come along since that last outing at Kempton back in October. After all, she did shape with plenty of promise, while the return to the scene of her only victory to date also bodes well.
Mystikana looks to have been found a good opportunity here and, off a low-weight, in first time cheek-pieces, the three-year-old filly looks set to run a big race. At odds of 7/2, she’s well worth a go – it wouldn’t be surprising if she’s a good bit shorter than that by the time they go to post.
14:35 Lingfield – Joeys Destiny @ 10/1 (each-way)
The 14:35 is the best race on the card at Lingfield on Wednesday and is therefore a competitive affair. There’s several good horses in there and a case could probably be made for most; however, the one who looks as though he really could go well, at a price that looks too big, is Joeys Destiny.
The early market seems to be concerning itself with the proven all-weather performers in the field (there’s a few!), which means George Baker’s six-year-old might just go unnoticed. This will be the gelding’s first outing on the all-weather, so whether he takes to it or not is anyone’s guess, but he’s proven to be quite versatile ground-wise on the turf so hopefully this won’t be a problem.
In his reasonably short career, he’s run a number of good races, both at this sort of level and better, and he might just be well in here off a mark that continues to fall. A current handicap rating of 87 is his lowest in over two years and is 2lb lower than his last winning mark.
Having run over 7f just four times, all in Class 2 events, he remains unexposed over the trip, while the manner in which he’s often stayed on over 6f suggests that this is where he should be. With this in mind, a Class 3 event over 7f could be right up his street.
On reappearance back in early October, he ran with promise over 6f, again shaping as though he wants to be going that extra furlong. Much like the selection above, it’s fancied that connections have been happy to be patient with this one in order to get him in the right race and although this contest is a decent one, he looks well weighted and could easily put in a good performance off this lowly mark.
This will be an interesting race to watch unfold, but, all things considered, if Joeys Destiny takes to surface, he could easily get himself involved and is worthy of an each-way punt at 10/1.
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