Floresco Can Flourish At Haydock

It wasn’t a great day for us at Lingfield on Friday, but it wasn’t a complete disaster either. Winning Story was the obvious highlight, and Tomily ran a cracker. None of my bigger priced fancies hit the frame unfortunately though and most of them, especially Metropol, weren’t given much assistance from the saddle. I like the look of one at tasty odds at Haydock on Saturday, and I reckon Floresco looks well overpriced in the 2 mile handicap hurdle at 15.15.

Hopefully the blinkers do the trick for Floresco.

Regular readers of the blog will know how highly I rate Richard Woollacott as a trainer, and these very colours were in the winner’s enclosure at Aintree last week when Lalor won impressively in the bumper. Hopefully Floresco can keep the good run going, though he does need to bounce back from a couple of uncharacteristic poor efforts on his last couple of starts.

This 7yo son of Santiago has been a fun horse for connections, and his best run by far this season came when I tipped him up here at 40/1 at Cheltenham (17f gd). He was beaten just over 8L in that class 3 contest in 4th off a mark of 130, and after two poor subsequent runs he has been dropped to a rating of 125. That is just 2lb above his last winning mark, and 5lb higher than the mark off which he was 4th in this race last year, beaten 6L despite being hampered at the start.

The cheek-pieces were applied last time when he was well beaten at Wincanton (16f soft) and now blinkers are tried along with the usual tongue tie. Daryl Jacob is back on board, and Floresco has form figures of 52146 when Jacob is in the plate. The 6th place came over a trip that stretches this horse, so apart from that run Floresco has usually produced his best for Jacob. The ground is perfect and a fast run race over this trip should suit. 25/1 looks an attractive price to me, and he is the each way selection.

STEVOS’ SELECTION: 15.15 HAYDOCK-FLORESCO E/W @ 25/1