1.55pm Nottingham Tips & Betting Preview 04/11/2015

Race Time: 1.55pm Meeting: Nottingham Day: Wednesday 4th November 2015
Distance: 1m 75y Inner Full Race Name: Lady Cecil Morpheus Handicap (Class 2)

Only a small field declared for this Listed race at Nottingham whic his a big disappointment, but Class 2 turf races in November are always at risk of bad weather and with Soft ground already and rain likely on Tuesday evening that’s what’s happened here.

Of the five horses, there are three last time out winners, a second place, and a 5th place in a Listed race; a competitive lineup. The likely favourite is joint top weight and last time out winner You’re Fired, who is a favourite of ours. He ran admirably at York in a Class 2 handicap off 98 and has been put up four pounds for a half length win. He’s a hold up horse so how far he won by isn’t an issue but his strike rate of 3 wins in 13 starts and a career high mark are both a little outputting. We expected him to be closer to evens than 2/1 though so given the price we can’t pass him up. He’s the class horse of the race and still on the improve.

We expect Beach Bar, the other top weight will also be a short price due to his last time out win where he destroyed a Leicester Class 2 handicap off 96 in similar conditions. He’s now two out of two on Soft ground but this is a 6lb higher mark and in August he was struggling off marks in the high 80s. He got an easy lead last time out and two others missed the break and he’s not certain to get that in a far more competitive race.

The last one we want to mention for now is Storm Rock who runs here under a 6lb penalty. He was a winner at Leicester on Soft last week returning from a break but is unexposed and looked to learn a lot through the race on his seventh start. However, as the race is open to only horses rated 96 or higher he’s treated as having that rating, and the 6lb penalty goes on top of that putting him up to 102 meaning he carries the maximum possible for a 3 year old of nine stone five pounds which is the same as Fire Ship. Effectively seven pounds worse off than he should be it’ll be interesting to see if Harry Dunlop let’s him take his chance here and if he does it says a lot about how highly he thinks of this colt. Installed at 3/1 second favourite in the market at 3/1 he’s too skinny for us given he’s effectively up a full 15 pounds since winning last time out by 2 lengths from Pintura who gets a 10 pound swing in his favour.