Balmoral Handicap Preview: Gavriel Looks A Fair Price For The Gosdens

The Balmoral Handicap closes Champions Day at Ascot and it is a big, wide-open handicap over the straight mile. Twenty runners go to post at 4.35pm for £200,000 guaranteed, with the ground good.

Gavriel and Scoville head the market at around 5/1, and I am siding with the Gosden three-year-old.

This is a tough race to solve, so let's start with the trends. Only one of the last nine favourites has won it, and every winner since 2017 has been rated between 96 and 105 and carried 9st 6lb or less. Three-year-olds have also taken nine places from 28 runners, and no eight-year-old has won it since 2017 (0 from 7).

Scoville is the other market leader. William Haggas's four-year-old is rated 99 and won a Doncaster mile handicap last time, 35 days ago. He is a fair price, but he tends to race keenly and he has a couple of the trends against him. Haggas runs three here, with last year's winner Crown Of Oaks (104) and Bullet Point also in the line-up.

GAVRIEL is my selection at around 5/1. John and Thady Gosden's three-year-old is rated 101 and gets in with just 9st 0lb on his back, so he fits the weight trend nicely. He was fourth in the Cambridgeshire last time in only his second handicap, and he is up just 2lb for it, which looks lenient to me.

He drops back to a mile here, which should suit, and he has already won over course and distance. He has been placed in two of his last three starts and Robert Havlin rides. The Gosden stable is in great form too, with eight winners from 38 runners over the last fortnight. Being drawn 18 is another positive.

Of the rest, Ebt's Guard is 12/1 and he dead-heated for second in this last year. William Muir and Chris Grassick's five-year-old is rated 102 and is the one I would want on my side in an each-way bet. Excellent Believe is a bigger price at around 16/1 and was third at the Curragh after finding trouble, so he could be well treated off 99.

Colori Forever is 12/1 with Ryan Moore on board for Marco Botti, while Hickory has won four of his 14 starts at Ascot but is eight, and the trend is against him. Persica is a Group 3 winner who is top weight on 10st 2lb.

I am happy to take 5/1 about GAVRIEL to win. With twenty runners the each-way terms are worth checking with your bookmaker, but I think he is the one to beat.