Hungerford Stakes Tips: English Oak Worth Another Chance
One of the big races on Saturday comes from Newbury and is the Group 2 Hungerford Stakes. A field of seven means each-way punters are cursing their luck, but there is still a fascinating shape to the race and the betting market and Billy Grimshaw is on hand to preview the contest for us...
The market is tight enough here with contrasting form lines coming into the race all seemingly being given similar ranking by the odds compilers and the early punters. Kingman colt Kikkuli is certainly the one to watch in terms of the fact he is bred supremely, only three and is lightly raced, but it's a tough ask here in Open company for a horse who ran a cracker in the Jersey for second place but then fluffed his lines over in France.
He may well work out as the best horse in this race and Harry Charlton's charge does receive weight all round here which will help, however there are some high quality animals in opposition and on what he's done so far he looks a few points short to me. The horse battling him for favouritism and the one I'll be siding with is ENGLISH OAK for Ed Walker. Regular readers of these pages will know I was blown away by his Royal Ascot win and was with him at Goodwood in the Lennox when he bombed out.
Perhaps it is hypocritical that I am forgiving him that run whereas I am judging Kikkuli more harshly on his Deauville flop, however there were plenty of excuses at Goodwood in what turned into a seriously messy race. Ed Walker's charge should relish this return to a more stereotypically fair track and I am convinced he is a group horse with ability to win this race and even a Group One in the fullness of time.
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Behind the top two in the betting are another duo with similar form coming into this race, the first of which is Tiber Flow for William Haggas, who also flopped in the aforementioned Lennox. He was another who was unsuited to the way that race panned out but if we put a line through that and go back to his Haydock John Of Gaunt success, he is surely bang in with a shout here. He is clearly a hardy sort as he was involved in a horrible incident at York back in just May but then came out and bolted in at Haydock, so the Goodwood no-show should put nobody off Haggas's charge. I'm just fairly sure English Oak has more latent ability.
The same can be said for Witch Hunter, who comes here defending his crown, but has not looked the same proposition in 2024 as he did in 2023. Coming into last season's race he had won at Royal Ascot and was clearly riding the crest of a wave, but this time he has yet to enter the winners' enclosure this season. He did run with credit at Chester last time out so is not one to totally dismiss at a course and distance we clearly know he likes, but I'd prefer the three ahead of him in the market truth be told even with the Jamie Spencer booking a positive.
Three more horses left to cover and they're all available to back at double figure odds. The outsider of the field at the time of writing Jumby would interest me most of these three, as I'm concerned that Popmaster and Folgaria could get into a battle for the lead and do damage to both runner's chances of glory. Jumby, on the other hand, can sit behind this early pace and although he is hardly a model of consistency, he did win this race in 2022 so must have a squeak.