Ayr Gold Cup Tips: Dreaming Of a Big Race Winner North Of The Border

The Ladbrokes Ayr Gold Cup takes centre stage on Saturday afternoon, and for all the chaos that comes with 25 runners sprinting down the Ayr straight, Billy Grimshaw has given his preview and prediction below...

I really do think FAR ABOVE DREAM is the value across the entire field at around 7/1James Owen's four-year-old goes into this race in the form of his life. He's already won a couple of times this season, and after a pair of quieter efforts in between, he bounced back with a good placed run last time out. That is exactly the type of profile I want to see heading into the biggest and most competitive handicap of his career — a horse who has proven he can win at a decent level and is now building back towards another peak rather than needing to find improvement from nowhere.

What really catches the eye, though, is the clock. Far Above Dream's topspeed figure of 116 is the fastest recorded by any of the 25 confirmed runners this season, comfortably quicker than anything produced by market leader Binhareer. In a race that is run at a serious gallop from a standing start and so often comes down to whoever is still finding more inside the final furlong, that sort of raw speed matters enormously. Jason Hart takes the ride and gets a leg up on 9st 1lb, a fair enough weight for a horse with his level of ability.

Binhareer is sent off favourite at around 4/1 for William Haggas and Tom Marquand, and I understand exactly why. He's a fixture at the head of the market whenever he runs, and he's been running consistently well enough without doing anything to really grab you by the lapels. That's perfectly satisfactory, but "perfectly satisfactory" is doing a lot of work for the head of the betting in a field of this size, and I would rather take the significantly bigger price about the horse with the faster figures and the stronger upward trajectory.

Hammer The Hammer is a fascinating case. He actually holds the highest official rating in the entire field on 124, yet he has drifted out beyond the 40/1 mark, and it isn't hard to see why once you look at how long it's been since he last ran to that figure. A rating that good doesn't simply disappear, but he clearly needs this large field to fall perfectly for him, and I am not prepared to take a chance on a horse who hasn't threatened for months.

Twilight Calls deserves real credit and is the one I'd want covering me each-way. Richard Spencer's sprinter has barely had a bad day all season, forever popping up in the frame without ever quite getting his head in front when it matters most, and that sort of relentless consistency is priceless in a field this size where covering every eventuality is impossible. He simply doesn't do the eye-catching stuff that gets a horse cut in the market, and at around 8/1 to 10/1 he looks fair each-way business alongside my main selection.

There are dangers scattered throughout the rest of the field — Dance In The Storm and Ardisia both have obvious claims on official figures, while Tuco Salamanca arrives here in good heart having won last time out. In a race like this, though, something has to give, and I am siding with the horse whose recent form and raw speed both point in the same direction.

At around 6/1, with the fastest figure in the race and momentum clearly behind him, Far Above Dream is the best bet in the Ayr Gold Cup.