Fanaar to Take Spring Cup on Seasonal Return

The William Haggas trained Fanaar returns to action as a three year old on Saturday in the Spring Cup at Lingfield. I like this horse, and while I don’t think he will go all the way up to the top and compete in the best three year old races this season, I do think he is good enough to make his mark at this level and slightly higher. The Haggas team have no issues when it comes to getting a horse fit and ready to run first time out, and I fancy him to take this race before going on to have a successful campaign in 2019.

Fanaar ran six times last year, winning a maiden and finishing second on two other occasions. Those seconds came in a novice race when carrying a penalty and in a good Doncaster handicap. Since then, he took a nice step forward on his last run of the season by finishing 4th in a Group Three at Newbury, showing that he had the ability to make up into a nice horse this season.

William Haggas is not known for excelling with his two year olds and generally speaking, whatever his horses do in their first season, they come on and go better when they turn three. If this horse finds any improvement over the winter because of that, he is going to prove to be above listed level in time.

This race is a nice race to come back to, it shouldn’t prove to be too much of a test for him and he looks to have a great chance of winning it. I expect as the season develops we will either see him win plenty of races at this level, or ultimately run well at a higher level in group races, possibly winning one.

Of the opposition, the best horse may be Chynna from the Mick Channon yard. Like our selection, this horse is also coming back for the first time this season after a layoff and looks as though she could go onto have a nice season. She went close to winning a listed race on her final run of last season, and looks capable of winning in her turn at this level.

Deep Intrigue and Quiet Endeavour both go into the race with a chance and the big advantage they have over the first two named horses is that they are race fit as they have been running on the all weather this winter. That may give them an advantage that brings them closer than they should be to Fanaar, but I still don’t believe that this advantage will be enough to change the result and give them the win.

With that, I come back to Fanaar, who is the horse in this race that could be a little bit better than this level based on what we saw last season. I don’t have any concerns surrounding his fitness for the race, the Haggas yard can get one ready and he looks to be the bet in the Spring Cup on Saturday.