ITV Racing Tips: Mujtaba a must for Cambridgeshire challenge
Published:
Having been challenged to solve the 25-runner Ayr Gold Cup, there is a 29-runner handicap to crack this weekend in the form of the Cambridgeshire.
It’s another race up a straight but this time the distance is 1m1f over Newmarket’s Rowley Mile.
The historic race is not the only attraction on another bumper day of action on the box, with two significant Group 1 races in the Cheveley Park and Middle Park Stakes for two-year-olds.
Aidan O’Brien has strong claims in both features, which are bound to have an impact on the betting for next year’s Classics, as could the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes on the same card.
Newmarket provides four races, there are two from Haydock and two from the Curragh where the Group 2 Beresford Stakes will be another pointer to next year.
It all kicks off at 1.10pm on ITV4 and we have previewed three of the day’s significant races in our ITV Racing Tips.
For fillies only so a pointer to next year’s 1,000 Guineas. Aidan O’Brien goes for his fifth win in eight years and has a strong claim for doing so.
The probable favourite is Trillium who has won her last three, of which the last two came at 5f. She is back over 6f this time but also up in class where O’Brien’s Meditate sets a high standard. She won her first four starts but met her match when overhauled by the impressive Tahiyra in the 7f Moyglare Stud Stakes.
Meditate still finished clear of the rest of the field and, back down to 6f, this customary frontrunner could be hard to catch.
It’s the turn of the colts in the Middle Park, a race O’Brien has been less dominant in lately. The betting predicts the Karl Burke-trained Gimcrack runner-up Marshman could have a role to play but he can’t match the experience of Blackbeard.
Since being defeated at Royal Ascot, the Ballydoyle colt has won two out of three and already has a Group 1 to his name having landed the Prix Morny. Perfect Power won the same race before capturing the Middle Park 12 months ago. Blackbeard can emulate him.
This is meant to be a highly competitive event but every now and again there is a Group horse masquerading as a handicapper somewhere in the field, Lord North being the latest example. That could be the case this year in the William Haggas-trained Mujtaba.
Haggas, who also trains the second favourite Protagonist, excels at this type of event but unusually the trainer has never won the Cambridgeshire. Mujtaba won his first three starts last year and went off favourite for the Lincoln in March.
He disappointed but showed his true merit back at Doncaster earlier this month when he bolted up on his first run since May. A 4lb penalty won’t be enough to stop him on that evidence and any rain would be a plus too.
Dual Identity should be thereabouts while down the weights, Caradoc, who has long promised to win a race of this nature, could run well at bigger odds.
ITV Racing Schedule, Saturday, 24th September
13:35 Curragh – Beresford Stakes
13:50 Newmarket – Royal Lodge Stakes
14:05 Haydock- 1m handicap
14:25 Newmarket – Cheveley Park Stakes
14:40 Haydock – 5f handicap
15:00 Newmarket – Middle Park Stakes
15:20 Curragh – Goffs Million
15:40 Newmarket – Cambridgeshire
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
