Newmarket July Festival Tips

The Newmarket July Festival takes place from Thursday 9th – Saturday 11th July and WhichBookie horse racing analyst Will Smith has provided below tips for the final race on day 1 of the festival – The Princess of Wales’s Tattersalls Stakes.

Be sure to check out more hot racing tips for more races on our betting tips pages.

Note: Any odds featured on this page were correct at time of publishing (17:10 pm 06/07/2020) and are subject to change.

Princess of Wales’s Tattersalls Stakes Tips

Thursday 4.10 

West End Charmer – 12/1 EW (William Hill)

Barely time to draw breath as the flat season powers on into July – having packed the Guineas, Royal Ascot, Derby, Oaks, Coral Eclipse, Irish Derby and both the French Derby and Oaks into the best part of 5 weeks, we now move on to the Newmarket July Festival and York’s Dante meeting this week. Not to mention, for jumps fans, the Summer Hurdle and Plate at Market Rasen on Friday.

It’s quite the rollercoaster ride… which is probably what Emmet McNamara was saying to himself as Serpentine powered out of Tattenham Corner to win the Derby. Front running tactics can often divide opinion markedly, but within one stable there is a consistent view that if you are on the best horse, then out front, setting an even tempo, is the place to be.

I am of course talking about the Mark Johnston stable, and I fancy them to win this Thursday’s Princess of Wales’s Tattersalls Stakes for the second year running. But not with last year’s winner Communique, who could appear again, but has been bitterly disappointing in two runs this season.

Instead, it is with the sharply progressive four-year-old West End Charmer, who is 12/1 with William Hill, and looks a great each-way bet to me. Sharply progressive four-year-old was how you would have described Communique last season when he came into this race, but as mentioned, he hasn’t looked the same horse this time around, and yet is much shorter in the betting than his stablemate.

West End Charmer has made massive strides in the last two seasons, and most notably his two runs this term. First time out, he led the field a merry dance in a good Newmarket handicap, from which stablemate and second home Sky Defender has easily won a quality Epsom handicap last weekend, and the fourth home Desert icon has won another similar handicap back at HQ.

West End Charmer then went to the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes at Royal Ascot, and tried to make all from stall 3 on soft ground over 1m 4f at the Berkshire track. Individually, any one of those factors make it tough to win a particular race at that trip at Ascot, but when combined, it is nigh on impossible. Put simply, he ran the race of his life to finish a close up third – only beaten by the late closer Scarlet Dragon, and Deja, who won well at Haydock on Sunday.

Both of West End Charmer’s wins this year compare favourably on the clock to supposed higher quality races on the same days at Newmarket and Royal Ascot. In particular, he was much quicker than aforementioned stablemate Communique, who ran on the same day at Newmarket. While, his time in the Ascot race compares well with the win of Fanny Logan in the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes, earlier on the card. She is current ante-post favourite for Thursday’s race, and the discrepancy in price seems wrong to me.

Of the other entries at this stage, quite a few would prefer much softer ground than it will be, and many have a hold-up run style, which can be tricky on fast ground at Newmarket on the July course. On the other hand, West End Charmer will hopefully be out the front, bouncing off the likely fast ground, and giving us a good run for our money at 12/1!