Alex Hammond Blog

Alex Hammond looks ahead to the weekend’s racing and feels Arab Spring could be worth following in Haydock feature.

A hectic week is over after the Goodwood and Galway Festivals – what were your highlights from the respective meetings?

I really enjoyed the week as the tips seemed to be lucky and we saw some fabulous performances. I think the standout for me at Goodwood was the win of Big Orange in the Goodwood Cup. I was really looking forward to seeing him run and he didn’t disappoint. He joins a rare and elite band of multiple winners of this race and must be a lovely horse to train because he seems incredibly genuine, a real grinder, and he still appears to be improving. If I could afford to buy a ready-made racehorse, this is the type of horse I would love to own. They become like old friends rather than flash in the pans and I’m a sentimental fool when it comes to horses, so he topped the bill for me.

I have a similar affection for staying chasers as I do stayers on the flat and my highlight at Galway was the performance of Alelchi Inois in the At The Races Chase on the final day of the 7 day marathon. The Willie Mullins trained eight year-old had already run well in the week when runner up in the Galway Plate and to come out a few days later and pulverise the opposition was impressive. Trainer Willie Mullins suggested afterwards that he could be a Grand National horse next year, but whether or not he ends up at Aintree, he is a wonderfully consistent horse with plenty of ability; another horse I’d love to own.

Dancing Star twinkled in the Stewards’ Cup – do you think she can make a splash at the top level later in the season?

It’s fair to say her win in the Stewards’ Cup was also one of my highlights and to do it in the manner she did was particularly pleasing. There is an element of bias as I backed her, but there’s more to it than that. She is from a family many racing fans have affection for, being a relative of the great mare Lochsong and it seems that she has more than her share of similarities.

She is the first filly to win this race since Lochsong back in 1992 and it just goes to show how times have changed as Lochsong won it off a mark of 82 and Dancing Star won off 20lbs higher.

Fortunately she doesn’t appear to be as headstrong and looks much more straightforward. She has bags of speed, but is more three dimensional as she stays six furlongs well. The world is her oyster at the moment and I have no doubt she can make her presence felt at the highest level this season and hopefully next. She’s currently 16/1 for the Qipco Champions Sprint on Champions Day at Ascot and deserves her step up into that kind of company.

It was another routine success for …

continue reading in source www.skysports.com