Mind your Language
HIGH LANGUAGE can rise to the challenge of the British Stallion Studs EBF Beckford Stakes at Bath.
The Listed event has attracted the attention of a clutch of leading yards - and tempted Joseph O’Brien to fire two shots from Ireland.
One of them is four-yearold High Language, accompanied across the Irish Sea by stablemate Cascabel as well as Willie Mullins’ True Self.
Lightly-raced, High Language progressed in four relatively quick runs last year - including a maiden victory at Killarney.
She returned to finish a promising fifth in a Listed race at Gowran in May, and then - back from another break last month - outran her odds to fill the same position at Galway, little more than three lengths behind subsequent Longchamp winner Princess Yaiza.
That form puts her bang in the picture here.
In the Octagon Consultancy Handicap, Final Choice is top of the list on just his second start for Adam West and first back on turf since the end of his hurdling campaign with Warren Greatrex four months ago.
Final Choice was only a neck away from flooring an odds-on shot at Chelmsford last week, and is a guaranteed stayer in this two-mileone-furlong marathon.
Maknifico’s credentials are perhaps not entirely obvious in division one of the Bath City Let Handicap, but he may be worth chancing nonetheless.
William Knight’s threeyear-old gelding has achieved relatively little so far, and has twice gone off at very big odds in his three starts.
But he makes his handicap debut at a very realistic level.