Hot To Trot: Godolphin causing a splash

Flat trainer - Charlie Appleby

With lots of well-bred youngsters either making their debuts or in the early stages of their careers, this is generally a good time of year for Godolphin and it’s been no different this time around, with both of their private trainers in red-hot form. Charlie Appleby, who has sent out Wuheida to win the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac at Chantill at the start of the month, even found the time to saddle a pattern winner in Australia in recent days when Qewy won the Group 3 Geelong Cup. Qewy had finished a gallant second in the Ascot Stakes over the Gold Cup C&D in June and was dropping back to a mile and a half Down Under. Appleby predictably has loads of fascinating entries coming up this week, though perhaps worthy of special interest are G K Chesterton, who caught the eye on his belated return when fifth at Newmarket last month and remains with potential, and Mise En Rose, who could run in the listed Fleur de Lys Fillies’ Stakes at Lingfield on Thursday, a race which the same connections won with Trarless in 2014.

Jumps trainer - Paul Nicholls

Paul Nicholls is in excellent form at present and continued his winning run with a treble at Cheltenham on Friday. Those successes took Nicholls’ record to 18 winners in October (at the time of writing). Granted, the vast majority of his winners were in smaller fields and have gone off at short prices, but you would have still showed a healthy profit if backing all his horses over the past two weeks. Nicholls is clearly cranking things up another gear at this stage in the season and it won’t be long before his top bracket of horses start to reappear – if they haven’t already (Old Guard and Diego du Charmil have already returned successfully) – including the likes of Silviniaco Conti, Dodging Bullets and Vibrato Valtat. In the meantime, Cash Again could be an interesting runners this week (entered at Chepstow and Stratford) given he made a winning debut in France last term before finishing second to the well regarded Jenkins on his debut for Nicholls, as could a similar type in Capitaine, who built on his initial second to Drumcliff when winning by a wide margin at Wincanton last April.  Or you could just keep an eye on every Nicholls runner over the next seven days!

Under the radar - John Ryan

John Ryan is no stranger to notable success, having won group races with Silver Grecian and Iver Bridge Lad, as well as the Lincoln with Ocean Tempest, and he’s been in good form for about a month now. During that time Bazzat has won three times, while Ocean Eleven has won twice, at 7/1 and 9/1. Four of those five victories came on the all-weather, and Ryan has long don well with his runners on artificial surfaces, showing a level profit of £360 to a £10 level stake at Kempton over the last five seasons, for example. Ryan’s go-to jockey is probably Adam Kirby, and the pair show a healthy profit when they combine, while Jack Mitchel and the recently crowned champion Jim Crowley are also good associates for Ryan. Ocean Eleven could big to comptlete the hat-trick back on the polytrack at Chelmsford on Wednesday, where recent Merhoob and two-year-old Bizet are also engaged.