3.10pm Ayr Tips & Betting Preview 17/09/2016

Another really trappy handicap to deal with this Saturday afternoon but luckily for us both Richard Fahey and Michael Dods have won it twice each in the past ten renewals so they give us a decent enough starting point. Naturally the Fahey yard had more than one entry but it looks like they have decided to rely on Garcia (9/2) who was unbeaten this season until trying his luck in the Britannia Handicap at Royal Ascot when running no sort of race and finishing a well beaten sixteenth of twenty-eight with no obvious excuses. The fact that he hasn’t been seen since June suggests that all may not have been perfect that day but he has been given plenty of time off to make a full recovery, and will hopefully look to get back to winning ways this afternoon. Sadly, the handicappers also seem to feel that was not his true running and haven’t lowered him an ounce, but if we both think the same we could be correct and he deserves his spot in our early race preview even if his price is poor value as far as we can see.

Mark Johnston is a trainer to watch when he heads north of the border and he runs recent winner Haley Bop (12/1 Each Way) here and the daughter of Dream Ahead would have a better than decent  chance. Last week she was sent to Chester for a seven and a half furlong Class Three handicap which she took with the minimum of fuss by a length and a half from God Willing and an extra five pounds here doesn’t look overly punitive and still leaves her nearer to the bottom of the weights than the top. The softer going is all in her favour especially off this weight and we are happy to put our money where our mouth is and make her our selection here with Richard Kingscote doing the steering.

Back to previous winning trainers and Michael Dods has entered Le Chat D’Or (16/1) here and has already booked Paul Mulrennan to ride and with five wins and ten places from 36 starts owner Dr Anne Gillespie must be pretty pleased with his efforts. Last time out he was fifth of eleven to Loaded at Carlisle beaten two and a half lengths so he clearly needs to build on that to get involved, but he did win off a mark of 85 in June 2104 here and only has to carry three pounds more than that this afternoon.

On to our old friend Roger Varian next and the lightly raced Morando (3/1) who has hacked up in both races since an educational debut when fourth at Windsor. A five length maiden win back at Windsor was followed by his first venture in to handicap company at Chester when he beat Tawakkol by an easy three and a half lengths and although put up an extra ten pounds for that we just get the feeling he may be a bit better than a handicapper and could well go on to compete in much better company in the long run.

Finally for now and Tim Easterby has decided to reply on One Word More (14/1) (instead of Breakable), and he knows a lot more than we do.  He has been kindly put down a pound after finishing fourth to Can’t Change It last week and seems pretty well handicapped despite a lot of weight and could yet run in to a place at a decent price.