Balmoral Handicap Tips & Betting Preview

We can only assume they end the card with a mile handicap as part of a “something for everyone” attitude because it really doesn’t fit, and is almost an anti-climax straight after the big race but then again it will have a winner at a decent price (they currently bet 7/1 the field), and everyone loves a decent priced winner. John Gosden has confused us all by taking ante-post favourite Castle Harbour out of the race and left Remarkable (12/1 Each-Way) in and we rather hope that is a bit of a hint. After finishing second to Log Out Island in a Listed race at Newbury he finished a four length fifth to Ribchester in the Group Three Jersey Stakes here over seven furlongs before returning to handicap company last time out.  Sent off at 6/1 he finished a three and a quarter length twelfth in the Challenge Cup here when perhaps left with a bit too much to do, but off two pounds less this afternoon he looks to have outstanding possibilities again.

Roger Varian’s Morando (15/2) is fighting it out with the Gosden colt at the head of the market and may well wend up fighting out the finish with his Newmarket rival as well when the chips are down. Obviously a late maturing sort he wasn’t seen at all as a juvenile but has won three of his four races this season at up to this level, rising in the weights race on race. Last time out at Ayr he put an easy two and a quarter lengths between himself and Haley Bop over this mile and has been put up eight pounds for his sins, but he just keeps on getting better and he may not have stopped improving just yet.

Bronze Angel (33/1) took this race in 2014 for trainer Marcus Tregoning and is back to try again this season at the age of seven and off exactly the same rating of 105. The gelded son of Dark Angel invariably wins at least one decent race a year and quite often at this stage of the season, and although only fifteenth of thirty-one last time out in the Cambridgeshire handicap at Newmarket, the fact is he either blows hot or cold and his recent form seems to have very little influence over how he will perform next time out.

Trainer Brian Meehan had a decent priced winner last weekend and will be looking to follow up here with Mutarakez (12/1) who won two out of three races last season and has only been seen the once in the whole of 2016 when eleventh of twenty-two at Doncaster in the Lincoln handicaps back in April. On the down side he must have had a few problems to be off the track this long but on the bright side he arrives here fresher than most and with his stable in good form he could run well at a massive price this afternoon.

To end the Channel 4 racing for this Saturday we get one last chance to mention Andrew Balding and he has Highland Colori (25/1) in here where the eight-year-old is all set to carry a penalty. First time blinkers seemed to work at York when he burst through to hit the front and then held off all challengers and although carrying an extra six pounds here he could still get involved as they run out of suitable races before the season draws to an end.