Ayr Gold Cup Tips: Rohaan Too Well Handicapped To Ignore
Ayr has its big day in the sun for the flat season on Saturday with the Ayr Gold Cup unsurprisingly taking centre stage. In what looks a typically competitive renewal, Billy Grimshaw has been drawn to a horse with a rapidly falling mark who - if on a going day - could make a mockery of his rating and looks to have the tools for success...
As is often the case in sprint handicaps these days, there looks to be pace absolutely everywhere in the 2024 renewal of the Ayr Gold Cup. Lethal Levi nearly always blasts off like a scolded cat, while Sergeant Wilko also likes to get on with things. Silky Wilkie is another front runner and from box one, King's Lynn could well lead the low drawn pack.
Favourite American Affair was off the pace last time out in winning the Portland at Doncaster, but that was probably not by design. If he can be more prominent here he is probably the one they all have to catch, but his five pound penalty for that Donny win was just enough to put me off tipping him with a price of sevens, for all he does look solid in each-way place markets.
Last year's second Ramazan is another I would put absolutely no one off backing each-way in a race this competitive. He obviously likes it here grabbing silver as a three year old and while he has more weight to carry this time around, he has shown with fine placed efforts in big sprint handicaps all season he enjoys this sort of test. There's an argument to be made that he should've won the Great St Wilfrid last time out with a better draw and while Ayr is not known for draw biases, being in the middle of the bunch in 14 looks ideal.
The Ayr Gold Cup has often gone to horses proven over seven, as in the final chapters of this six furlong test stamina comes to the fore. Northern Express certainly fits that bill for Michael Dods after his win over seven at Ascot last time out and he's another I'd not be surprised to see in the mix.
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Clearly this is a race with loads who have a chance in - it is Europe's richest sprint handicap after all - and while there are a host more who deserve honourable mentions like Room Service and Mostabshir, the more I looked at the it the more I could not see ROHAAN not running a huge race. Last season he finished just a length and a half off the winner Significantly but because the finish was so bunched, he ended up in seventh place.
That day he had near top weight to carry and was giving Ramazan five pounds, with that horse finishing less than a length in front of David Evans' charge. This time around, the tables are turned and Ramazan must attempt to give Rohaan a whopping ten pounds (seven when factoring in the claim of Ramazan's rider). This - providing Rohaan runs his race - could be an impossible task for last year's second.
The elephant in the room is why has Rohaan's mark dropped so sharply, and the answer is inconvenient but simple. He has been running really poorly for the majority of this campaign. That's the bad news out of the way, but let me try to convince you why I'm siding with him. We saw last season he also had some pretty poor form figures on his CV, but this time of year was when he burst into life - with that close seventh here under top weight preceding a win at Ascot in the Iron Stand handicap over six.
Evans is a wily campaigner and I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't been plotting all season long to get his charge down the weights for a better crack at this valuable pot. There were marked signs of life in his latest run when a good third at Ascot in a snail's pace race, breaking more alertly than usual and running on well. He is a hold up horse which I'm fairly sure we are going to want in here with all the rockets blasting off at the front potentially setting it up ideally, and he has that all important seven furlong form. I hope this is the culmination of a long term plan coming together and will be backing him to go six places better in 2024 than he managed in 2023 considering the huge drop in the weights.