Yorkshire Oaks Tips: Emily Can Get Back On The Up
The Yorkshire Oaks headlines Thursday's action on the Knavesmire. Read on for our preview and headline tip for the race...
The phrase form is temporary, class is permanent is often thrown around in sports, however when the sporting pursuit involves equine participants its validity becomes more questionable. Just as footballers who seem to have lost a yard of pace are deemed to have 'gone' - Casemiro, sorry if you're reading this - horses (particularly mares) are quick to be discounted as past their best on the back of a few sub par efforts.
Maybe EMILY UPJOHN is gone at the game and retirement beckons, but in a race like this and with her back class as well as the all important price, I'm willing to pay to find out. The Gosden representative is a horse I've struggled to get a handle on throughout her career, and this actually makes me feel more confident in the fact she is not 'gone at the game' just yet. She has always been inconsistent. She's always thrown in a stinker or two a season. And although she started this season with a whimper, her run last time out behind Bluestocking was certainly no stinker.
At the Curragh she ran with immense credit and Kieran Shoemark could well have made more use of his mare. The result probably wouldn't have changed and I think the world of Bluestocking, but still it was a back to something like her best effort from Emily Upjohn and that provides great hope. The yard were not quite firing as the 2024 campaign began with some of their stalwarts but things seem to have steadied now and I don't think there is a horse in here with the talent to beat her, not on what we've seen thus far anyway.
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The one most likely to improve past her is probably stablemate Queen Of The Pride, who is battling for favouritism with Content at the time of writing. Her win in the Lancashire Oaks was another big step in the right direction for this lightly raced sort, and there must be potential for her coming forward again for a better surface. Nevertheless, Emily Upjohn is a fair standard bearer for them all to get past and I reckon the win from Queen Of The Pride at Haydock is not worth as much as Emily Upjohn's second at the Curragh.
The aforementioned Content will benefit from being given a whopping nine pounds from her elders as well as the mercurial Ryan Moore in the saddle, who is already having a grand time of things on the Knavesmire midway through day one as I pen this piece. She is a tough filly and wasn't far behind Emily Upjohn and Bluestocking on her penultimate start. That being said, I think a fair bit too much has been made of how unlucky she was last time out in the Irish Oaks behind the re-opposing You Got To Me and would fancy the winner last time out to uphold that form here.
Of the outsiders, Sea Theme has always been well regarded for William Haggas and could be overpriced, while Lava Stream ran a mighty race for second in the Ribblesdale at Royal Ascot on her penultimate start and if her last outing in the Irish Oaks simply came too soon, could go closer here. Nevertheless, I'm all in on Emily Upjohn to get another big group one win at a track she won the Musidora at two years ago.