Fast Dancer can get back to winning ways
FAST DANCER can save the best until last at Bath. The five-year-old gelding has not won for over two years, but he must have a grand chance in the concluding one-mile handicap on the seven-race card.
Fast Dancer has this year shown gradual progress and was perhaps unlucky not to strike at Brighton last month when he got to within a head of Honiara in a seven-furlong handicap.
He was then sent to Wind- sor a fortnight ago and turned in another satisfactory effort back over a mile.
The gelded son of Fast Company finished third, beaten three-quarters of a length, but he would probably have got closer to the main players had he not encountered traffic problems inside the final two furlongs.
Fast Dancer stayed on nicely once daylight did appear, and yet he is still allowed to run in this moderate encounter off the same handicap mark.
That means he is still 1lb lower than when he last found the back of the net, so trainer Joe Tuite is right to head to Bath in an optimistic frame of mind.
Keep close tabs on Fumbo Jumbo in a five-furlong handicap at Catterick.
Michael Dods’ inmate did pretty well for previous trainer Garry Moss and carried on the good work on her first start for her new handler.
She essentially had little chance against Tylery Wonder in the jumps jockeys’ ‘Nunthorpe’ at York on July 1, but Dods must have been really pleased by the manner in which she kept going for second spot.
Fumbo Jumbo can win a race like this off her current mark, but Callum Rodriguez’s 5lb claim will also come in very handy.
The four-year-old daughter of Zebedee will surely be fitter than at York, too, as that was her first spin since last October.
Hajjam can be trusted to run with honour at Leicester’s evening meeting.
Things did not go his way at Beverley last time when he could only finish fourth as the 5-2 favourite for an eightand-a-half-furlong handicap.
There were extenuating circumstances, though, as they went no gallop whatsoever on the Westwood, while his path was also blocked inside the final furlong.
Hajjam had previously won nicely at Redcar and looks interesting as he reverts to seven furlongs in a handicap that is likely to contain more pace than at Beverley.