Dawn to seize the day at Ripon

- Alicante Dawn can give Bryan Smart another valuable winner today at Ripon in the Longines Irish Champions Weekend EBF Ripon Champion Two Years Old Trophy, 2016.

Fresh from his victory in the Great St Wilfrid at the track with Nameitwhatyoulike, Smart is searching for further glory.

Alicante Dawn made a pleasing debut when third at Musselburgh and he won his two other starts impressively.

He broke his maiden at Carlisle in a race which, in truth, did not take much winning.

But next time out at Thirsk he showed the potential of plenty more to come, winning a nursery by four lengths off top weight.

Smart rates him highly and from limited resources he usually finds one a season worth getting excited about and this could well be it.

For a Listed race it has cut up pretty badly, and he is arguably the only one in the field on an upward curve.

One who has been given a midseason break has been James Fanshawe’s Knight Owl.

He began his season in the same vein as he ended last, by winning, and it was a competitive handicap at the Guineas meeting so promised plenty.

The fact he has not run since being beaten at a short price next time suggests all might not have been well, so he is worth another chance at proving he is up to defying a mark of 92 in the Ripon Rowels Handicap.

In the first division of the vertem.co.uk/ebf Irish Stallion Farms Maiden Stakes at Newcastle, the Michael Dods-trained Moonlight Blue is worth a second glance.

Fourth at 25-1 on his debut at the track, he can be expected to take a good step forward given how Dods trains his juveniles.

Huntsmans Close is the latest sprinter to join Robert Cowell and he can make his first start for his new handler a winning one in the Indigenous Handicap at Epsom.

Formerly with Roger Charlton, he won off 98 at Windsor last season, the same mark he starts life off for Cowell.

Last seen finishing down the field in the Wokingham, won by Cowell’s Outback Traveller, he had previously gone close at Goodwood off 100, showing the ability was still there.

The best bet at Chepstow is the William Haggas-trained Good Omen in the Dorothy Mort Memorial EBF Maiden Stakes. - Press Association