HORSE RACING

So racing is once more whipping up a storm, writes Julie Williams.

This time it was the unusual use of the whip from jockey Raul Da Silva.

Not to correct his horse, but to chastise former Champion Jockey Jim Crowley, who cast doubt on his abilities after the first at Goodwood on Sunday.

Not quite handbags at dawn as De Silva has a 21 day ban for his efforts in the weighing room bust up.

York racecourse and the quality racing they put on make it the stand-out track in the North. It’s a fair and flat track with a brutal stamina sapping straight that sorts the wheat from the chaff.

They say there is a draw bias with those drawn nearest the inner rail in big field races. You can hear them wax lyrical about the golden highway, that seam of near mythic fast ground, that should a horse bag it in the final four furlongs it gives them an edge. I would not dispute it.

A handy draw is always the hope when you are planning on putting your hard earned cash on a horse.

Just as important, however, is sussing out exactly where the pace in a race is coming from. Not so easy when the one you hoped would blaze away from the front to set a strong and even gallop for your selection to destroy on the line actually falls out the stalls and you end up with a mixed and muddled race with just a cavalry charge at the end.

Pontificating about what I like in a race is so much easier than finding the horse that will do that winning for us! We keep on trying.

To be run over one mile this Friday at York, the Ganton Stakes is a Listed race for horses who have yet to win a Group 1 or a Group 2 Pattern race.

The big yards of the south have dominated in the last few years with Saeed bin Suroor the latest of them with bottom weight ARABIAN HOPE.

Last year’s winner came out of stall one. It’s worth noting the last six winners have been drawn no higher than stall five; three of those going off favourite.

Aggregating the available statics, the likely winner will be a five-year-old drawn in stall five, carrying nine stone seven pounds on its back. If only it were so.

We will not know the draw till later in the week but with 20 runners declared at the five day stage, you can be sure it’ll be competitive.

Last year’s winning yard pin their hopes on TOP SCORE. The four-year-old gelding does, however, seem to save his best form for Meydan but his speed figures improve with every race and he may well be the danger to our selection, ANOTHER TOUCH.

Perhaps the owners’ punting intentions are writ large in the horses’ name.

He came on to my radar when he won a hot handicap at the Ayr Gold Cup meeting in 2015 as much for the fact that his trainer Richard Fahey struck a remarkable vein of form that week and it left quite a few bookies crying into their cocoa. Let’s just say I had my hankies to hand.

With five wins and seven places from 27 runs the winning ratio of ANOTHER TOUCH is OK give he has spent time racing in warm company.

You could also say his 2018 campaign so far has been lacklustre. It kicked off with three average runs in Meydan; the best of it on home turf with a third placing at Epsom in April. That was run over two furlongs further than Fridays race will be.

So with stamina assured at a track the horse knows well I believe this race has long been marked out for ANOTHER TOUCH. I am, of course, guessing but if he gets a decent draw (fingers crossed for stall five which has produced three winners from six runners) then I will get heavily involved each way but at no less than double figure odds.

Should connection elect to run him in the John Smith’s Cup Handicap the following day I will still bet him. We want him ridden handy, forcing the pace if necessary, making good use of his abundant stamina. If not for my pocket then certainly for my ego I need this horse to run a big race!