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Flat trainer:
Ed Dunlop has made an excellent start to the new Flat season, with his 22 winners so far in 2016 only five and seven behind the totals he achieved in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Dunlop’s return to peak form has been typified by the four-year-old Dark Red who completed a handicap hat-trick this year in a competitive race at Chester on Thursday. Dark Red has been ridden to two of his wins by Ryan Moore and Silvestre de Sousa, and a link-up with such top jockeys is likely to ensure Dunlop continues to trainer winners throughout this season, while the trainer looks a to have a Royal Ascot two-year-old on his hands in the shape of Global Applause who made a winning debut at Newmarket under Moore. Dunlop has plenty of horses due to run in the coming days, and it may be worth paying particular attention to Alqubbah, who took a step forward when runner-up in a big-field handicap on her return and may find the required further improvement to make a splash in the fillies’ listed race (3.50pm) at Nottingham on Saturday, and Michael’s Mount, who made a winning handicap debut at Windsor last month and will be of definite interest if declared for a similar race over the same C&D on Monday.
Jumps trainer:
Harry Fry has been ticking over nicely in the last four weeks and, like Dan Skelton who was featured in last week’s edition of this column, is surely heading for the top as a National Hunt trainer. Following a clear career-best 54 winners in 2015/16, Fry has saddled four winners from 13 runners in the new jumps season and should continue in similar form in the foreseeable future, still seemingly with a number of horses to run judged by his list of current entries. Among them is Voix d’Eau who won for the third time since joining the Fry stable in the Grade 2 Silver Trophy Handicap Chase at Cheltenham last month and will bid to add another win to his tally in an intermediate chase (4.30pm) at Haydock on Saturday. Meme’s Horse is another interesting one having won his second hurdling start and is sure to be out again soon (was entered on Saturday and Sunday but wasn’t declared), as is another young hurdler in Space Oddity.
Under the Radar:
The David Brown yard has been quietly saddling stacks of winners in recent months—11 from 36 runners over the last three months, actually (at the time of writing)—and its good run shows no obvious signs of stopping. Brown enjoyed his best year so far in 2015 when saddling 24 winners, and he’s already halfway there to matching that total this time around, with Dutch Garden, Palpitation and Ticking Away all adding two wins each to the tally. Brown’s skill was highlighted once again by Exchequer’s return win at Lingfield early last month, the five-year-old making his first start for the trainer having left Richard Hannon, while backing all of the stable’s runner so far this year would have yielded a near 28-point profit to a level stake. Swirral Edge could do without Ordinal being declared against her in the six-furlong handicap on Monday but he could be of interest there, given she ran well when third on her reappearance and may yet do better, while Simply Clever has finished placed on her last three starts and should go well again if running in the mile fillies’ handicap on the same card. Looking further ahead, Brown has a number of two-year-olds with entries in either the Super Sprint or Premier Yearling Stakes, including One Too Many who is a half-sister to the 100-rated performers Third Time Lucky and Baba O’Riley.
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