Mokaatil Fancied to go Well in Scottish Sprint
The 5f Scottish Sprint Cup is no easy puzzle to solve, with a field of 17 declared to go to post, including a few in form runners, and many standing dishes in these kind of events. One horse who takes the eye though is recent winner Mokaatil, who did things nicely at Pontefract and is a horse who could follow up here, despite a penalty to shoulder.
He has a five pound penalty to carry in this race but that has been negated by a very good jockey booking. Andrew Breslin takes over the ride from PJ McDonald and while Breslin is not at the same level as McDonald, few are, he is a very good claimer and worth his five pound allowance. That allowance take the horse down to the same rating as he ran off at Pontefract, where he really impressed me.
He was drawn quite wide at Pontefract, and was held up in the race too. Generally speaking it is better to be near the pace at Pontefract, and that was certainly the case on the day of this race, earlier this week. That makes the win for Mokaatil slightly better than it looked on paper, he only just got up on the line, but certainly did it the hard way.
This is another track where it can be tough to come from the back, but what is in the favour of Mokaatil here is the amount of early pace on. I can see the front runners all fighting for the lead and cutting each others throats, setting the race up for the hold up horses to come and pounce late.
The betting currently has the favourite at 7/1, which is A Momentofmadness, and that tells you all you need to know about how competitive this is, it is certainly not an easy puzzle to solve. However, recent form, and form that could turn out to be a little better than the bare result suggests is on offer here in the shape of Mokaatil. I’m going with him to score again, and win two races in the space of just five days.