3:45 Southwell: Conditions Stakes, 1m

Eight-year-old veteran How Bizarre is certainly a much better chance in this seriously poor field than his current price. He goes up in trip with the advantage of having a super draw in a race with precious little other pace to fight.

Red Evelyn is probably one who wants to move forward, especially with first-time blinkers. She’s one of the more feared rivals, though I can see that she may do too much early on over this trip and in the blinkers.

How Bizarre gets the mile, just. He has shown to be able to stay it fine if the pace isn’t overly hot. I think he will be able to slot in nicely tracking the pace and Billy Garritty should have plenty of options.

As for form, How Bizarre has probably close to the best here, I reckon. He has been consistent this year, but clearly looked like hitting top form in his penultimate eye catching performance.

Then over 7 furlongs as Southwell, he quickly overcame the widest draw to establish a solid lead heading into the turn. He did a lot to get there, though. He led into the straight and fought hard not to relinquish the lead, just to go down very late.

A week ago over the same CD he lost many lengths at the start, though. After anticipating the start, and seemingly getting first out of the gates, he suddenly stopped completely. Before moving on and making excellent progress from 4f out, before tiering in the final furlong. He still ran seriously well, given the bizarre start to the race

A repeat of the performance from two runs back will see him go seriously close, if he can settle over the mile trip, and starts well. That form and the one before have worked out pretty well in the meantime.

He’s a obviously tricky sort these days, though. Tends to hang in closing stages; though he didn’t show any habit of starting slowly before, so hopefully it was just something that frightened him in the re-fitted blinkers on the day. They are off here, which is probably a positive.

If he gets that usual solid start from the #3 draw he should get an ideal trip and will have top chances to add a second CD win.

The clear risk, however, is the fact that the yard doesn’t send out winners on the All-Weather at all. Like never. Ever. Not since 2020. And in the last five years a meagre 2. Granted, the absolute majority where no hopers. I believe this lad has quite a lot of hope in this field, though, and has shown more than once recently that he’s in form to go close.

10pts win – How Bizarre @ 9/1