Leicester Tuesday 17th August

During the flat season, narrowing down potential bets to confirmed selections on any particular day is often a two-fold process. Generally, it will combine going through horses that are in my tracker for various reasons, and sitting those alongside particular courses where there could be an advantage to be gained by draw, pace, ground, wind etc.

Invariably, plenty will not make the final cut, and often it’s the ones that you leave out that keep the profit and loss on the right path. Despite the gnawing horrible feeling inside you, that it would be galling if a certain horse that you’ve maybe followed for a while, were to go and win unbacked.

Today, there is one bet, and fulfils every criterion. It comes in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Nursery Handicap at Leicester at 5.55 this evening – in the shape of the Richard Hannon-trained Sows, who at 9/2 each-way with SkyBet is just edging towards the cut off point in terms of price, but is still a good bet in my eyes.

SkyBet are offering four places on the race, and while that hopefully is a mere secondary element to it, as hopefully we are focussing on the win part at the closing stages of the race, it is still worth locking away.

Sows ran a mighty race last time, on her nursery debut, in a fiendishly competitive nursery at Glorious Goodwood. For the whole of the mid-summer showpiece meeting, you had to be drawn high near the stands rail on the straight track, so for Sows to finish a close fourth from stall 3 was a huge effort.

The first three home came from stalls 13, 12 and 8, and it was noticeable how, despite most of the field racing in the centre of the track, those that came to the fore were able to finish strongest of all on the stands side.

Sows was ploughing her own furrow in the centre, and given today’s assignment represents a drop in grade, on the back of her creditable run at Goodwood, she should be clear favourite to me, and so at 9/2 each-way, she is the bet of the day in the Leicester 5.55.

A surprise winner on fast ground on her debut at Nottingham, there were then excuses for her next two starts at Royal Ascot and Windsor, and the final piece of the jigsaw is Sows’ draw today in stall 2. On the straight course at Leicester, with the stalls on the stands side, a low draw in the centre of the track is often advantageous.

In addition to that, there is a blustery westerly wind that will buffet the runners drawn high, so Rossa Ryan can slot in mid pack, away from the wind and on the favoured part of the track, safe in the knowledge that he’s on the best filly in the race.

If there was a danger to Sows, then it could be the horse drawn right on the far side in stall 1, Ye Gud Thing, who was a strong second at Newbury last time, and is overpriced at 10/1. I wouldn’t put anyone off a small each-way saver on her too.