1.45pm Sandown Tips & Betting Preview 13/06/2015

Race Time: 1.45pm Meeting: Sandown Distance: 1m 1f
Full Race Name: winner.co.uk Handicap (Class 3)

Free Tip: Mustaaqeem at 5/1

Well some bright spark has decided we can start out Channel 4 card with just about the trickiest handicap imaginable with 12 currently declared at the 48 hour stage and a long list of rapidly improving three year olds to look through. The Richard Hannon trained Tashaar (NR) heads the weights with the rejuvenated Derby winning Frankie Dettori in the saddle, but how do we realistically gauge the abilities of the once raced son of Sea The Stars who hacked up in his maiden first time out by a little shy of five lengths at Haydock on good ground. With the Hannon horses invariably needing their first runs of the season this year there is every chance he will have improved considerably for the run in which case we wonder if he may be a bit better than your average handicapper and possibly up to Group class with a little more experience? Naturally on a Saturday he won’t be having things all his own way and we have enjoyed watching the rebirth of the Sir Michael Stoute stable after a couple of quiet seasons and in Mustaaqeem (5/1) we have dark horse number two for the opening televised contest.  A little more experienced with two races to his name, the son of Dynaformer got off the mark at the second attempt at Doncaster on ground that was plenty soft enough for him on breeding at least, and in receipt of a couple of pounds from the top weight, he could certainly be one of those more likely to get his head in front. He managed just that last time out in his 2nd run of the season at Doncaster and there’s still more to come.

Third on a very long list of possibilities for us comes from the Andrew Balding stable and goes by the name of Star System (10/1) who has a perfect two from two record this season, his only races so far as he failed to make it to the course as a juvenile. He absolutely hacked up at Southwell in March over a mile but we all know by now that Southwell form rarely equates to better class contests on the turf but he did follow up over a mile and a quarter at Ripon in a handicap off a rating eight pounds lower. We could possibly have it all wrong but this looks a much classier event on paper at least and will take a lot more winning and good as he is, we do suspect there will be one or two that will improve past the Jimmy Fortune ridden colt today and he may be better suited to races at the lesser tracks.

Anyone who ever looks at a three year old handicap that contains a horse from the William Haggas yard would be well advised to have a second look as the Newmarket trainer is a genius when it comes to improving his horses, and knowing exactly how much he has done so.  Awesome Power is his runner here and after the standard educational jog round when seventh of nine at Newmarket he won his maiden last November at Lingfield on the polytrack on behalf of The Queen and may well have improved considerably in his six months or so off the track – if our selections fails we certainly see the son of Dubawi as the one to tale advantage.

Outsiders are hard to find in races like this but maybe, just maybe Tom Hark (8/1) could sneak in to a place. We aren’t overly keen on most of his form to be fair, yet the Hannon yard responsible for our main selection are happy to send him here and Richard Hughes has chosen to ride him (presumably ahead of Rembrandt), which suggests there may be a little more to him than meets the eye.