By Ed Culham
AS IS the case at Doncaster, conditions are going to be pretty desperate at Newbury.
Officials have already stated that the ground can’t take much more rain and there’s got to be a chance that the card is abandoned.
With such uncertainty at this stage, betting opportunities are hard to find and caution is advised, although I do like one in the St Simon Stakes (1.30pm).
Hamish will likely go off favourite having won his last three, including impressively at Goodwood last time, but he was beaten in this race 12 months ago in very similar conditions.
In fact, both times William Haggas’ contender has run on heavy ground he’s been beaten, so there have to be question marks about taking a short price.
That most recent of those defeats came at the hands of Max Vega, trained by Ralph Beckett, and I thought Beckett’s SALT BAY might go well for the Hampshire-based handler this time around.
Granted this is a step up in class from the handicap he ran in last time at the same track, but I was really impressed with how well he stuck to the task against Not So Sleepy in really testing conditions.
Some decent horses weren’t able to live with the eventual winner, but Salt Bay did for virtually the whole way and I can see him going well on ground that is going to be really hard work.
With the ground so soft, it’s likely that we’ll see plenty of non-runners and so the 10/1 available about the Beckett runner with three places looks worth snapping up each-way at this stage.
POINTERS SATURDAY
Salt Bay 1.30pm Newbury
