Lord Of The Lodge Fancied to Land Newmarket Group Three
The three day Newmarket Cambridgeshire meeting begins today and the feature race on the card is a Group Three contest for two year olds over the trip of seven furlongs. This race will no doubt point us in the direction of a nice horse to follow for next season as a three year old, although looking down the field it is expected that these will fall just short of being top class next season. Of the horses in the race, it appears there are two to concentrate on, one that has shown a high level of form already and one that has fairly good form, but could get go even better with a little more experience. The two horses in question are Lord Of The Lodge and Wichita.
It is Lord Of The Lodge that I like the most from these two, and he certainly has the best form in the book. He finished second in the Gimcrack at York and that was a very good one, one that will put him close to winning this if he can reproduce it.
The one difference here is that he has an additional furlong to travel, which is a small question mark. However, he didn’t look like stopping at York in that run, he has stamina in his pedigree and the hope is there that he will last out this longer trip and go close.
His main rival is Wichita, a lightly raced horse in comparison with just two runs under his belt. He won a maiden before finishing second at Doncaster in a listed contest. That piece of form is the second best in this race behind the Gimcrack form, although this horse has something else in his favour and that is the fact that with just two runs so far he could still be improving. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see further improvement from this horse, and that could take him to a new level, better than that set by Lord Of The Lodge.
This race all really boils down to if these two horses can run to what we have seen so far. If they do that then Lord Of The Lodge has the best form in the book. However, if Wichita improves again then he comes into it.
For me, I will go with the form in the book, I liked what I saw from Lord Of The Lodge and I think he will be a tough nut to crack, so he is the selection in the race.
Be sure to head over to our horse racing tips page for more from Newmarket on Thursday and over the next three days of the Cambridgeshire meeting.