Horse Racing Tips: Ascot sprint calls for Pete

A day of mixed action in Britain and Ireland, with Ascot and Lingfield staging the Premier meetings. First off is Haydock, followed by Lingfield, Nottingham, Naas, Ascot and Cork. In the evening there are meetings from Hexham, Leicester and Warwick.

Among our horse racing tips for Saturday is a well-handicapped sprinter, who is teaming up with a promising apprentice rider.

13:35 Haydock - Dance And Glance @ 15/2

This time last year, DANCE AND GLANCE was winning a bumper at Plumpton, having gone off an eye-catching 14/1 for his debut in a £100,000 race at Newbury a couple of months earlier.

He clearly remains unexposed, little more than a year after he was introduced to the wider world. It took him a long time to build on a wide-margin hurdles debut win in November, but he did it at Bangor 16 days ago when second in a handicap hurdle at Bangor.

Dance And Glance was set plenty to do relative to the winner that day, and that was compounded by him stuttering into the last. Otherwise he would have come very close to reeling in the reopposing Bareback Jack.

There is also the pedigree aspect to consider. Dance And Glance is a half-brother to a couple of horses who boasted good strike-rates throughout their careers, while his dam had one, too.

All this seems positive and suggests he can keep improving.

Winning the Swinton, the first Premier Handicap of the season, might seem a big ask, but it is in effect a 0-135 handicap hurdle so it need not be daunting.

Betfred will return your stake (up to £10) as a free bet if your selection in this race finishes 2nd. T&Cs apply.

16:15 Nottingham - Haymaker @ 7/2

The impression you get from the markets is that HAYMAKER should have delivered more than five wins in his career, and a peak BHA mark of 90. He has gone off favourite or joint-favourite 13 times from 31 runs.

His most productive spell came around this time last year. What precipitated that run was wind surgery, after which he went on a run of form figures 21123. That includes a win over this course and distance.

Connections have again opted for wind surgery ahead of Haymaker's seasonal reappearance. He starts the season well enough handicapped to win and, perhaps with a clear run at his racing, he can finally get to the level he has seemingly always been thought capable.

17:35 Ascot - Justcallmepete each-way @ 11/1

Jack Dace is showing promise as a 7lb claiming apprentice rider. Since his first mount last August, he has ridden 10 winners at a strike-rate of 12 per cent. That would be respectable whatever, but he has mostly been riding for lesser yards so that return looks fairly impressive.

Dace gets the ride here on the well-handicapped JUSTCALLMEPETE on the horse's second run for Tony Carroll.

Like a lot of well-handicapped horses, Justcallmepete has got there by being out of form. However, it is not so long ago that he showed form that would make him really interesting here, even before Dace's claim is brought into play.

Justcallmepete has always been at his best granted a stiff 6f or 7f on the all-weather. Ascot's straight course is therefore likely a good match for his style, although he has only run here twice and while he performed just OK, he had been sent off favourite.

He is handicapped to strike and would not need to get back to anything like he peak to feature in this one.

This is an Extra Place Race, with four places available instead of three at 1/5 the odds for all each-way bets.

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