Nap of the Day: Headmaster can manage Haydock rivals

It's a visit to my local track, Haydock, for the Nap of the Day on Friday.

A lightly-raced three-year-old is fancied to break his duck after showing plenty of promise to date.

After a couple of narrow defeats to above-average rivals, HEADMASTER can get off the mark at the third time of asking at Haydock on Friday.

William Haggas' three-year-old son of Dubawi was already gelded prior to his belated debut over an extended seven furlongs at Lingfield in May, where he bumped into Charles Hill's Elarak - a subsequent winner by over five lengths, earning him a rating of 98.

The selection, who's out of multiple Group 1-winning mare One Master for identical connections, was within a length of that one and almost four clear of Polygram - already rated 77 and sent off 11/10f following a hat-trick of fine efforts in defeat - for Harry Charlton, so it reads like a relatively strong piece of form.

Headmaster was then upped in trip, to a mile, and in grade, to a Class 2, for his next assignment at Windsor. He was just touched off by Roger Varian's Antipodes (89) in Berkshire, and finished almost three lengths clear of a subsequent winner in Kaleido (82).

A replication of either effort would set a clear standard in this field of 10 - let alone an even better one, which is highly possible in the case of this lightly-raced individual.

William Haggas is in red-hot form, operating at a 32% strike rate in the past fortnight, which makes me very optimistic the selection will run his race at the very least.

Of his nine rivals on Merseyside, it's Tokyo Joe, Golden Redemption and Grey Jaguar who can provide something to think about.

The former two are rated 78 and 76 respectively, which is at least four pounds below what I believe Headmaster to be already - while the latter was easily put in his place by an admittedly good horse last time out.

If any of the newcomers are to trouble the judge, it'll probably be Roger Varian's Ertijaaj, but I find it highly unlikely he'll be able to run to the sort of figure that's likely to be needed to win this on debut.

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