Doncaster Park Stakes Tips & Betting Preview

An interesting race as always with past winners from Ireland (three in the last ten years), Jeremy Noseda (twice), and of the class of Limato last season for Henry Candy, but will anyone of that class come out of the woodwork in 2016. As things stand some seriously good beasts have been entered, with Aidan O’Brien’s The Happy Prince (11/1 Each Way) the one we want to be on. Seamie Heffernan rides the son of Rip Van Winkle who took a minor event at Navan very easily over six furlongs last time out. He does need to build on that to win here but looked back to his best, and as his old form includes a second to Anthem Alexander in a Group Three last season, he won’t need to improve too much to take a hand this afternoon.

It seems that Aidan O’Brien will also rely on Cougar Mountain (12/1) with Donnacha O’Brien booked to ride and we see that as a bit of a hint that he is the stable second string. Now a five-year-old, he has only won two of his sixteen starts which is pretty unusual for a Ballydoyle horse, but he did finish second to Tribal Beat last time out, suggesting he is returning to his best, and if that is the case we could argue that his third to Solow last season would be the best form on offer here this afternoon.

Richard Hannon has entered Toormore (9/2) here and he is a class act at his peak as seen with a win in the bet365 Mile at Sandown in April. We are beginning to wonder if he goes best fresh as he hasn’t manged to win again in five more outings, though to be fair he was only two and a half lengths behind Tepin at Royal Ascot, and that is decent form.  Interestingly, that was on soft going and it may be that a bit of cut is just what he needs after all these days, though he only ran two weeks ago and we wonder if that is a big enough gap between races for him.

Richard Pankhurst (9/4) has always been the subject of glowing gallop reports from Newmarket but was beginning to look like a lost cause, until finally putting it all in at Newbury to see off reliable yardstick Home of The Brave by a length running on. He looked to have a fair bit left up his sleeve that day and was certainly value for further in our view, and it will certainly be interesting to see if he can go on from there.

Finally, trainer Peter Chapple-Hyam has been having a miserable season but did get a win out of Buckstay (9/1) last time, so maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel. Although he only took a minor Class Three event he does have a fourth to Dutch Connection on his CV which isn’t bad form at all in the context of this race, and if he can repeat that this afternoon he would most certainly arrive with chances of a place.