There is a difference between a horse who keeps getting beaten and a horse who keeps getting beaten by good ones. HOUQUETOT (4:25 York, 7/2) is the second sort, and the market has not worked it out yet.
Go back to Newmarket on 4 July. He was two lengths down at the line, which on the face of it is a beaten horse in a competitive handicap and nothing more. The one who did it has since gone out and won a class 2. That is not a rival flattering him, that is a horse who was clearly ahead of the grade on the day, and it drags the whole line up with it. Another from his recent races has won since as well, so this is not one result carrying the argument on its own. His figures over that spell are the best he has ever put up and sit above the level he normally runs to. He has had seven furlongs before, he has had good ground before, and stall ten in a field of fifteen is neither the gift nor the problem.
The mark of 92 is where the bet lives. On the evidence of the summer he is better than that, and the handicapper has not caught him yet.
Sixty four days since his last start is the honest query, and he has not won in five. Neither changes what the form is worth.
Over at Fontwell, NO MORE BOLERO (4:05 Fontwell, 6/4) turns up in the best shape of anything running today. Two wins back to back, then a half length defeat at Market Rasen on 15 August that reads far better now than it did at the time, because the horse who beat him has since won off a mark five pounds higher than he raced off that day. Twenty two days on he comes back to a five-runner class 4 handicap over 2m3f29y on good ground, a trip he has already been round. For a horse already on 107 to be running to a level his mark has not caught up with is worth something, and Fontwell is a track where both the yard and Harry Cobden do better than their overall records would tell you.
The weight is the thing. One hundred and sixty one pounds round Fontwell is a real ask, up and down all the way, and it is the most likely reason he gets turned over.
We also have to be straight about the speed figures. They have been below what you want to see and there is nothing to suggest that is about to change. The case for him is the Market Rasen line and the condition he is in, not the clock.
Yesterday our five headline picks produced one winner in Persica at 9/2 and two placed.
Two horses, one yard, and two very different propositions. One is a short price with a big weight and a form line that has been upgraded since. The other is a bigger price with a mark that looks a length or two out of date. Both are worth being on. If it comes down to one, it is Houquetot at 7/2.