William Haggas holds all the aces at Ascot, as Hamish and Tenability put their winning streaks on the line in the BetMGM Cumberland Lodge Stakes on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Stable stalwart Hamish took his career tally to 14 at Chester last month and with the dry summer limiting the popular nine-year-old to just two appearances this season, conditions appear set to suit in Berkshire, as he attempts to reclaim the prize he won in 2022. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be soft enough for Hamish and they keep telling me they are going to get rain, so if they do it will be interesting,\u201d said Haggas. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s fine after his win last time, he just needs that bit of soft ground and Maureen is very happy with him. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are not many races he can run in, this is one and he\u2019s penalty free, so he will have a good chance, but it\u2019s a strong race.\u201d<\/p>\n
A field of five has assembled for the Group Three event in which Haggas is also keen to see how Tenability fares up in grade. <\/p>\n
Although having plenty to find on official figures, the three-year-old arrives having won four on the bounce and his last three all at Ascot. <\/p>\n
Haggas continued: \u201cHe\u2019s classed as the outsider, so it looks a strong race. There\u2019s only five of them but four are rated 110 or more and poor Tenability is only rated 100. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s an improver, but he\u2019s still only a young horse, a three-year-old. He\u2019s a nice horse though who is doing well and it will be very interesting. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure if he likes going to Ascot, but he\u2019s done very well there and we\u2019ll see what he\u2019s made of. Al Qareem will set a strong gallop and it will be interesting to see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Connections of the aforementioned Al Qareem have fond memories of their visits to Ascot on this weekend and having decided against a tilt at the Prix du Cadran now go in search of a third straight success in this feature 12-furlong event after butting heads with some top stayers the last twice. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe only ran in the Irish St Leger a couple of weeks ago so Karl (Burke, trainer) wouldn\u2019t have needed to do much with him,\u201d said Nick Bradley, managing director of owners Nick Bradley Racing. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s six now and we know what we\u2019re going to get from him 99 times out of 100. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of races for these horses at this time of the year, if you think there\u2019s the Cadran, Royal-Oak, Long Distance Cup and we\u2019ve not long had the Irish St Leger so hopefully we\u2019re in one that is slightly easier and if he runs up to his best form hopefully he is there or thereabouts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haggas also holds leading claims in the other Group Three event on the card, where progressive York Listed winner Elmonjed may have to tackle the slowest ground he has ever faced to continue his rise up the sprinting ranks in the John Guest Racing Bengough Stakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d be a little bit concerned about the ground for him if it does go soft as he won\u2019t have encountered ground as soft as that,\u201d explained Haggas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to run him and think he deserves a crack at a Group Three, but would be a little worried about the ground. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s also shown his best form probably at York which is a Flat track and this will be a bit different but he\u2019s a useful horse. If you can win those big handicaps there is not much of a gulf between that and a stakes race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elmonjed will lock horns once again with Marco Botti\u2019s course and distance winner Prince Of India who was a length adrift of his Somerville Lodge rival when third on the Knavesmire.<\/p>\n
There is Listed sprinting action in the BetMGM Rous Stakes where two winners from Ayr\u2019s Western meeting, Karl Burke\u2019s Beautiful Diamond and Richard Spencer\u2019s Candy, are among the leading names, while the BetMGM British EBF October Stakes sees 16 fillies do battle over seven furlongs for Listed honours. <\/p>\n
It is a race that gives Ollie Sangster\u2019s Flight the chance to bounce back to her best having so far failed to back up her length second to Desert Flower in the 1000 Guineas earlier in the year. <\/p>\n
Sangster said: \u201cShe was a little disappointing the last day in the Atalanta (at Sandown), but it was her first day back after a good break since Royal Ascot and she has probably stepped forward for that. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is slightly calmer waters again and on ratings she should put up a good performance. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere looks to be a bit of rain around which I don\u2019t think would be a massive disadvantage and we\u2019re also dropping back to seven furlongs. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a few changes, but she\u2019s a filly who needs things to fall her way in order for her to put in her optimal performance and hopefully some of these changes will enable that to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"William Haggas holds all the aces at Ascot, as Hamish and Tenability put their winning streaks on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-177193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}