Misplaced Fortune

Misplaced Fortune is interesting after running in the Sky Bet Dash at York on Saturday. She wasn’t an unlucky loser or anything, she just got no run whatsoever at any stage. Travelling well on the near side, she never had anywhere to go, so you can just completely ignore this run. She was very weak on the betting exchanges in the minutes before the off as well, drifting from around 19/20 to around 27/28 in five minutes.

Nigel Tinkler’s mare has been in good form this season and it would be a surprise if there is not still more to come from her. She travelled well and stayed on gamely to win at Ripon in May in a race that is working out well, beating three subsequent winners, one of whom won her next two races, and another, Hallelujah, who has been a close third in Group 3 company since too.

She hasn’t had things go completely her way subsequently, being held up off a steady pace in a small-field race at Newcastle, and probably not asked for her effort soon enough – she is a horse who finds plenty for pressure – and then having to forfeit a position on the stands side rail to make ground back at Newcastle on her previous run, on a day on which the ground was barely raceable and it was an absolute necessity to race against the rail.

She remains interesting, she has plenty of form on easy ground, but her trainer says she prefers fast ground, and three of her six career wins have come on good to firm ground and another one on firm, so that makes her most recent Newcaslte run behind Fast Shot even more meritorious. There could be a decent prize in her in the coming weeks.

28th July 2012