2nd Aug 2012 | Horse Racing
Goodwood Tips: Askar Tau
Struggled on soft ground lately but a return to a sounder surface should yield a dramatic improvement.
Saddlers Rock and Colour Vision deserve their places at the head of the market in the 3.15 Goodwood but their isn’t much value in their prices. Beyond the front two, the race seems wide open and Askar Tau at 33/1 (Stan James) holds place prospects at worse.
Perhaps surprisingly for a stayer, Askar Tau is very ground dependant.
Turf win record by going:
Good or quicker: 7/15
Good to soft or slower: 0/5
On that basis, his last two runs can be ignored as both were on good to soft ground. He actually ran very well to get within 4.75 lengths of Colour Vision in the Ascot Gold Cup considering the testing conditions were against him and the extra 4f didn’t help either.
On his seasonal reappearance at Sandown he finished a lacklustre sixth, 11 lengths behind Opinion Poll but that is excusable as he is a horse who always needs a recent run. He has lost all six times he has raced after a break of 60+ days, losing by an average of 20 lengths!
With the going described as good and a recent run under his belt, he should run a big race. At 33/1 (Stan James) there is some each-way value, with ¼ odds for a top-3 finish.
Odds correct at time of publishing: 10:04 2nd Aug, 2012 but subject to change