7th-Jul-2010

Music Show has a real chance of winning this, and she was well over-priced at 10/1 (when advised ante post on Sunday). Winner of the Rockfel Stakes at the end of last season as a juvenile, a really good 1000 Guineas trial in recent years, she proved that she had trained on when she produced a smart turn of foot to win the Nell Gwyn on her debut this season, carrying a 3lb penalty.

She was well fancied for the Guineas on the back of that run, but she had no chance with the draw. Even at that, she won her race on the far side, beating the nine other fillies who raced over there, including subsequent Oaks fourth Rumoush and subsequent dual winner Seta, and she was a fast-finishing third in the Irish Guineas after that, when she was a short head and a head in front of today’s favourite Lillie Langtry.

While the Ballydoyle filly exacted her revenge in the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot next time, Music Show had no luck through that race. I am usually not into unlucky losers, simply because they are often over-bet on their next run, but the ill-luck that Music Show suffered at Ascot had gone well under the radar until this morning. People seemed to have lost faith in her – three defeats on the bounce will do that to you – without investigating the reasons for her defeats.

Mick Channon’s filly was drawn out wide at Ascot in stall two, one from the outside in a field of 13. She was wide the whole way down the side of the track and freer than ideal, and Ryan Moore dropped her back to second last place rounding the home turn so that she wouldn’t be too wide. That left her far too far back with two furlongs to run to have a hope of winning the race, but she finished best of all to take fourth place, just a neck behind Jacqueline Quest, who was third.

The form book says that Music Show has almost four lengths to make up on Lillie Langtry on their running at Ascot, but the Ballydoyle filly enjoyed the run of the race, just behind the leaders and on the fence, whereas Music Show certainly did not. If you had had similar runs through the race, it is difficult to know which of them would have won, and the price discrepancy between the two of them today is far too great.

Special Duty is obviously a player, but she is priced up just about right at 7/2, and Rainfall is a filly that I like quite a bit, but I think she could be a better filly on easy ground, even though she won the Jersey. I am more afraid of the older fillies, Strawberrydaiquiri and Spacious, who fought out the finish of the Windsor Forest.

Even though they have won three of the last four renewals of this race, there is a chance that the three-year-old fillies aren’t as good as their elders this year – the Oaks is working out poorly and they all finished in a heap in the Irish 1000 Guineas – and Spacious is over-priced as well for me at 10/1. There was nothing between her and Strawberrydaiquiri at Ascot, and she is twice the price of the Michael Stoute filly. Futhermore, while she has yet to win in six attempts at Newmarket, five of those runs have been on the Rowley Mile course (and one of them on that course even was her run to finish second in the 1000 Guineas in 2008). Her only run on the July Course was in this race last year, when she was beaten just a length by Goldikova.

She is a high class filly. She may be just below the Goldikovas of the world, but there is nothing of the French superfilly’s calibre in here today, and she is worth having on side at 10/1. With Bet365 going ¼ the odds a place, and the dead eight runners, she is an each-way bet with them.

MUSIC SHOW WON (ADV 10/1, SP 13/2)

SPACIOUS 2ND (ADV EW 10/1, SP 9/1)