Sport

Artist looks good value

RACING: WAR ARTIST rates a value each-way call in the Darley July Cup at Newmarket this afternoon.

Sat Jul 09 2011 - 01:00

RACING:WAR ARTIST rates a value each-way call in the Darley July Cup at Newmarket this afternoon.

The veteran sprinter faces a ferociously difficult task against the likes of Delegator and Star Witness, but he remains an outstanding alternative for those punters anticipating an upset.

Now in the care of Markus Klug, the rookie trainer from Germany, the eight-year-old gelding made an exemplary start for new connections when fifth in the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Indeed, he may have even got closer to the winner, Prohibit, if Olivier Peslier had not been forced to swerve wide of retreating horses. What made that effort all the more praiseworthy was the fact War Artist, who historically takes a couple of outings to come to hand, had not been sighted since March, when he finished a head second behind JJ The Jet Plane in Dubai.

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Klug had tried to get a prep race into him before Ascot, but was consistently thwarted by testing conditions in his homeland – a factor which must be considered at the weekend.To that end, he should be a much leaner, hungrier animal in the July Cup, in which he finished third behind Marchand D’Or in 2008. Odds of 20 to 1 may look gargantuan if War Artist can show even a modicum of improvement from Royal Ascot.

Experience may count at Tipperary

EXPERIENCE IS the potential star of the show on Tipperary's seven-race card today.

David Wachman's filly has improved with each run and proved too strong in the Group Three Grangecon Stud Stakes at the Curragh on Derby weekend.

Naseem Sea and British raider Dam Beautiful were third and fifth that day and try again in the Danehill Dancer Tipperary Stakes, with Experience joined in the Listed contest by stable companion Requinto, while Jim Bolger saddles promising maiden An Ghalanta.

Cape Of Good Grace has acquitted herself well in three decent maidens this season and she sets the standard in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Fillies Maiden. But Aidan O'Brien has chosen this race as the returning point for his Irish Oaks entry Poinsettia, and this daughter of Galileo showed more than a fair level of form as a juvenile.

O'Brien is responsible for almost a third of the field in the opening Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden (2.10), and the market will provide the best guide to the chances of his trio.