Horse Racing Tips: Gstaad can storm to Guineas glory

It has been an excellent work for both Flat and National Hunt racing so far and that trend continues into the weekend with the conclusion of the Punchestown Festival and the first Classic of the season, the Betfred 2000 Guineas, takes place at Newmarket.

Newmarket gets us underway, with the main event taking place at 3.35, and Goodwood, Thirsk, Uttoxeter, Hexham and Doncaster. It's also Day 5 of the Punchestown Festival and there are two Grade 1s to look forward to, including the Champion Four Year Old Hurdle.

We have picked out three of our strongest fancies across the weekend and they include an Aidan O’Brien-trained runner in the 2000 Guineas who brings excellent form to the table.

14:55 Newmarket - Asfoora @ 5/1

There's a substantial field of 14 in the line up here, but there's only one runner who is a bona fide Group 1 performer and that's ASFOORA. Previously trained in Australia by Henry Dwyer, she has since joined Lemos De Souza and will make her stable debut.

She perhaps doesn't always win when she should, but the level of form that she brings to the table is levels above anything else on offer. She won the King Charles III Stakes at Royal Ascot in 2024 and earned another top level success in the Nunthorpe Stakes last season.

Either of those pieces of form suggests she's the one to beat here, but the seven-year-old was also last seen in the Prix l'Abbaye on Arc weekend and was victorious. Obviously she's likely to improve for the run, but she can afford to be slightly off and still come out on top.

15:35 Newmarket - Gstaad @ 10/3

England's first Classic of the season hasn't been the best of races for the usually dominant Aidan O'Brien in recent years, so it's easy to forget that no trainer has won it more times than him. A return to glory is on the cards sooner or later and GSTAAD could be the one.

The form of his win on debut in a Navan maiden is very hard to knock, as stablemate True Love finished second and she went on to win the Queen Mary and the Cheveley Park. There was more to come from him at Royal Ascot and he won the Coventry Stakes easily.

Competitive but failing to win in his next three starts, he confirmed that he's a proper Group 1 horse on each occasion and saw the mile out well when winning at the Breeders' Cup. The son of Starspangledbanner is surely the one to beat on form.

16:55 Punchestown - Saratoga @ 5/1

Connections were very careful with SARATOGA before Cheltenham and it was immediately obvious why. He perhaps wasn't given the hardest time in his first three starts over timber. Those efforts did get him a handicap mark and he made a mockery of it at the Festival.

We saw a vastly improved performance in the McCoy Contractors Juvenile Handicap Hurdle and the four-year-old travelled strongly throughout. Mark Walsh never really had a moment's worry though and he kept on well to score with plenty in hand.

It didn't look like the strongest renewal of the Triumph Hurdle, with big favourite Narciso Has missing through injury, and there probably isn't a great deal of substance to that form.

Perhaps Saratoga can come out on top, bringing a different formline to the table.

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