After a successful Royal Ascot, our horse racing tipster gives his best selections from Friday’s evening racing at Newcastle and Newmarket.
Perfectly Timed (6:35pm, Newcastle)
Three-year-old gelding Perfectly Timed was well-backed for his second career start at Kempton Park back in February. He did not disappoint, duly delivering for favourite backers and winning readily despite showing patches of greenness.
The greenness displayed in that performance very quickly led connections to geld him in an effort to rectify the issue moving forward. He subsequently raced very well on his return following the procedure at Brighton last month.
He sat second behind Post Rider throughout and the pair had a proper battle to decide who would be victorious.
Post Rider got the better of him in the final 50 yards but the duo were well clear of third. Perfectly Timed should improve further on that run, giving him the ability to claim his second career win.
Bulldog Drummond (7:35pm, Newmarket)
Three-year-old gelding Bulldog Drummond is a two-time winner on the all-weather, with multiple placed finishes. However, he reverted back to turf for his first outing for new trainer Patrick Owens six days ago.
It was supposed to be a trial run for the trainer with no real expectations attached, reflected by the fact that he was sent off at 50/1.
However, despite being slightly outpaced early on, only just managing to keep attached to the back of the field, he massively surpassed expectations.
Moving up late and making some serious headway inside the final furlong as others tired, he ended up managing to get a place, finishing third and only narrowly missing out on second.
Upped to 7f here and dropped back down in grade, he is a serious contender in his second run after a wind operation.
Ananda (8:10pm, Newmarket)
Four-year-old filly out of Frankel, Ananda sadly missed all of the 2023 season after a promising start to her career during which she impressively won on her second start as a two-year-old.
She finally made her third career start last month at Doncaster, well-backed late going off as favourite. However, she found subsequent Group 1 runner Kind Of Blue too good and had to settle for second.
She was second again on her handicap debut last time out at Haydock Park three weeks ago. She was slightly difficult to control that day but made good late headway when straightening in the final furlong, finishing within a length of the winner.
She is expected to improve again from that latest run and should finally notch her second career win, 21 months after the first.