21st-Aug-2015

Acapulco may well win the Nunthorpe, she may blitz all her rivals from the front, she may make her massive weight concession tell, but she is very short given how many question marks there are.

She has never run at York, she has never run on easy ground, Irad Oritz has never ridden her, and she has never taken on older horses before.  As well as that, she would have been primed for Royal Ascot by Wesley Ward.  That was her target, this is an afterthought.  She may well win, but you have to take her on at 9/4.

You never would have thought that you would be able to back Mecca’s Angel at 8/1 in the Nunthorpe on ground that was easier than good.  She is a top class sprinter on easy conditions, and she proved that she doesn’t need it bottomless, that ground on the easy side of good is fine for her, when she won a listed race at Doncaster last September.

She was beaten at The Curragh on Irish Oaks day last time, and that is why she is available at 8/1, but you can allow her that.  The ground was not as soft as was expected, and she raced off the favoured stands rail against a talented sprinter in Stepper Point who was at the top of his game.  Even so, she only went down by a neck in the end.

The ground should be at least a little easier today, and she is back at York, where she finished second in a listed race as a juvenile on her only previous visit.  She has the potential to go right to the top of the sprinting tree, five furlongs is her trip, and she is well drawn in the middle in stall 10.  You can see her hunting up Acapulco and putting it up to her inside the final furlong.

MECCA’S ANGEL WON (ADV 8/1, SP 15/2)