Kingdom Could Finally Come Good At Down Royal

Mountain Kingdom is a horse that the term 'expensive to follow' was coined for. The frustrating 4yo remains a maiden after 19 starts, and what makes it worse is that he clearly has the ability necessary to win a race.

He went close on his second handicap run when he was in the care of Mark Prescott off a mark of 71, but that was as good as it got for Mountain Kingdom in the UK. He went up to mark of 75 on the back of that effort, and despite being well backed on a couple of occasions he proved to be very disappointing.

He was given tally ho from the Prescott stable, and was picked up for a cut price 11.500gns at the sales. He was initially bought for 95,000gns, so as you can imagine he is rather well bred. He just hasn't lived up to his pedigree as of yet.

However, he couldn't be with a better trainer to sweeten him up, and he has been falling in the handicap despite showing clear signs that some ability remained in recent runs. His effort behind Bog War when returning from a mini break at Galway off a mark of 62, when finishing 5th beaten less than 4 lengths was a huge step forward.

He couldn't follow it up when upped to 14f on his next run at the same track, but on his penultimate run at Roscommon he again ran well dropped back to 12f. That came off 61, and the pattern of a good run followed by a bad one continued over 16f at Dundalk last time out, when he was beaten out of sight.

At least that effort has resulted in him being dropped another pound by the handicapper, and the return to 12f on easyish ground will hopefully spark this inconsistent gelding back into life. Down Royal is a similar sort of track to Galway and a reproduction of Mountain Kingdom's run there behind Bog War would be sufficient to see him in the shake up here. He looks worth a small each way interest at 16/1 and his pilot Ross Coakley, is riding out of his skin at the moment.

STEVOS' SELECTION: 6.35 DOWN ROYAL: MOUNTAIN KINGDOM 16/1 (E/W)