NAP of the Day: Branksome the pick of the pool on Friday

I'm afraid the writing was on the wall for Thursday's selection before the word go, as the main danger was backed off the boards before even going to post. He of course bolted up. It happens.

Hopefully the market speaks in our favour on Friday, with the NAP of the Day from Chester.

Stall 7 in a six-furlong sprint at Chester? Hear me out...

There's no denying the draw bias on the Roodee. It exists, and everyone knows it - including the oddsmakers.

What does tend to get missed, however, is the impact of the ground. The softer it gets, the less influential it becomes. To an extent, at least.

The going was officially good to soft at Chester as of Thursday morning, and 30 miles away at Betfred HQ in Warrington it's been non-stop raining all afternoon, so I'm expecting testing conditions.

That ought to make LADY BRANKSOME's job a little bit easier in this two-year-old novice event.

Michael Bell's daughter of Saxon Warrior, a 60k guineas breeze-up buy, has a huge chance if inconvenienced by the start, after her second to Karl Burke's Etonnante at Ripon last time out.

The selection finished within two lengths of the Havana Grey filly, who holds an entry for the G2 Airlie Stud Stakes at the Curragh for the end of the month.

Horse Racing Odds

Adding further depth to the form, the third-placed Fern Clyde, who's entered in the Super Sprint Stakes at Newbury in July, went in at Pontefract the other day. She was four-and-a-half lengths behind us in North Yorkshire.

With further improvement expected, Lady Branksome is taken to put it up to her eight rivals on Friday.

Of those, it's Belardo Ace and Metamouse for Andrew Balding and David Loughnane respectively who can give us the most to think about.

The former improved significantly on a modest debut at Salisbury in May to finish runner-up to a well-backed George Boughey gelding at Windsor just 11 days ago. He breaks from the widest stall, but as I've already suggested that mightn't be as much of an issue as it normally would be.

Metamouse has the plum draw, which is always a positive at Chester despite my previous comments, and he can take a step forward from his debut at Chepstow. He'll need to, though, as that's modest form in comparison to the selection's.

She'll be hard to beat as far as I'm concerned.

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