Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
BOB SLEIGHS ‘EM
was impressive in the Chester Vase on soft ground, but has also won on a fast surface, so could give Frankie Dettori a dream Epsom send-off. PASSENGER didn’t find daylight until too late in the Dante. SELECTIONS: ARREST, PASSENGER
PROSPEROUS VOYAGE (below) is a Group 1 winner and the class of filly in this field. SELECTION: PROSPEROUS VOYAGE
SELECTIONS:
CLARENDON HOUSE ran well on his reappearance at York, despite losing a shoe.
LIHOU is a course and distance winner this term.
SELECTIONS:
CLARENDON HOUSE, LIHOU
FOX JOURNEY should build on his excellent seasonal debut score at HQ last month. SELECTION: FOX JOURNEY
PLACEPOT PLAN: 8 lines at £1 = £8
BOBSLEIGH flew to an impressive success in the British EBF 40th Anniversary Woodcote Stakes at Epsom, as the 2023 Derby Festival got under way yesterday.
Eve Johnson Houghton’s two-year-old came into the race with quite a taking Brighton maiden win to his name and was a 5-1 chance in this 12-runner affair.
He did not feature prominently in the early stages and was patiently ridden by Charlie Bishop until the final bend, when he was manoeuvred to challenge.
Having taken a wide line he battled past each of his rivals, including the 9-4 favourite Haatem, who missed the break completely and did extremely well to finish third, and long-time leader and eventual runner-up Balon d’or.
Johnson Houghton said: “I think we’ve got a Royal Ascot two-year-old on our hands, he’s pretty exciting and it went exactly as we planned.
“We thought they’d go really fast, so I said to Charlie to get him balanced and wait until he comes to you. I knew he had a good turn of foot, but it was whether he could make up that much ground – I thought he was pretty impressive.
“I don’t know which race at Ascot. He’s got plenty of boot so we could drop back to five and the Coventry over six is obviously going to be the hottest race.”
Bishop added: “Eve does a fantastic job of buying these horses for the syndicate. The team were very bullish, I’ve barely sat on him apart from riding him at Brighton so a lot of credit goes to everyone at home and the trainer – she doesn’t do a bad job, does she?”