Prince Of Dance

31st-Oct-2009

I quite like Prince Of Dance here. He has a lot to find on the book with Shaweel and Plum Pudding – 15lb with the former and 9lb with the latter – but he is a really progressive individual who could prove to be top class. Winner on his racecourse debut at Newbury in May this year, when he was well backed, a fractured pelvis kept him off the track until three weeks ago, when he returned at Salisbury in a really hot handicap, off a stiff enough looking mark of 94, and produced a really impressive performance to beat Prime Exhibit, Secrecy and Marching Time. It paid to race handily at Salisbury on the day, which Prince Of Dance did, but he had the pace to do that, and the turn of foot that he showed was impressive. The three horses that followed him home are really useful performers themselves.

The handicapper raised him to a mark of 100 after that, which still leaves him 15lb shy of the Godolphin horse Shaweel. The Godolphin horses are on some roll at present, their last eight representatives have all won, and Shaweel is a classy horse who won the Gimcrack last year and finished fourth in the Dewhurst. However, he has been disappointing this term in his two runs, in the Greenham and in the French Guineas. It is significant that they have persevered with him until this late in the season, and he is the horse they have to beat, but the market vibes about him this morning are weak. If he was going well at home, given the roll that they are on, you have to think that he would be a 6/4 shot today. We still don’t know that he has trained on as a three-year-old, and he is opposable for me.

Plum Pudding is a good old stick, winner of the Bunbury Cup, and he loves Newmarket. He is going to go out to make all for sure, but he is a seven-furlong specialist, and he is opposable for me over a mile.

The ground is a little bit of a worry for Prince Of Dance, he would probably prefer it to be softer than it is going to be. However, the times at Newmarket yesterday were slow enough, which suggests that the ground was on the easy side. While there was a headwind, which probably influenced the times, we can be sure that it won’t be fast ground today, and that should be fine. All of that into the mix, and he is worth backing at 4/1.

PRINCE OF DANCE WON (ADV 4/1, SP 7/2)

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