Three meetings on a Sunday and we have gone in ten deep, which is heavier than usual for a card this size. That tells you something about how the day has read. Southwell alone accounts for half the list, and the spread of prices there runs from odds-on territory right up to a 33/1 shot. It is a day of two halves. Five picks at 3/1 or shorter, five at bigger than 4/1, and no fence sitting in between.
Southwell is where we have committed most. The afternoon opens with Astrological at 1:30 and closes out with two we like late on. Federal Envoy in the 5:10 is the one we keep coming back to. His times have picked up sharply off a modest base, and when a horse improves off a low starting point like that, the handicapper tends to be a step behind rather than ahead. Six to one for a horse heading in the right direction is worth taking on. Mdawi in the 5:40 is a different sort of proposition, a four runner affair with Ray Dawson aboard, and Dawson goes better round Southwell than his overall figures suggest. The 104 days off is a fair question and we are not pretending otherwise. He won his last two, so the ability is there. It is a price play, not a certainty.
Pontefract gives us three and Darzah at 4:15 is the pick of them. She won two starts back, the trip is familiar and the ground holds no surprises, and Pontefract is one of the tracks where Haggas has consistently done well over the years. That is a lot of boxes ticked at just over 3/1. Ammes carries our biggest stake of the day in the 5:15, and Rare Change at 12/1 in the 6:45 rounds off the Yorkshire end of things.
Over at the Curragh we have taken two swings. Mary Shoelaces in the 5:25 won last time out and already has the trip and the ground sorted, which is half the job done. The form either side of that win is patchy and her times are not climbing, so we are backing her at a price rather than talking her up as anything more. High Morals in the opener at 1:35 is the outsider of the whole list at 15/1.
Yesterday gave us two winners from five, with Dark Ace at 6.5 and Runman at 5.0 both getting the job done, and Talitha Rouge and Mister Mojito filling places behind them. That is the sort of return that keeps a week ticking over nicely.
The bigger prices today are where the day gets decided. Five of them, all with something behind them, and it only takes one or two to land for this to be a Sunday worth remembering.