NAP of the Day: Cracksking looks ready to take Shergar Cup crown

There are eight meetings on Saturday for punters to get their teeth into and the best one of the afternoon comes from Ascot, where the Shergar Cup takes place across six races with the best jockeys from around the world competing.

Our Saturday NAP of the Day comes from the Shergar Cup at Ascot, where red-hot trainer James Fanshawe saddles a well-bred four-year-old who appears to be improving at a rate of knots.

There aren’t many trainers in better form than James Fanshawe right now and he can strike in the Shergar Cup Challenge with CRACKSKING, who appears to have lots more to offer.

The lightly raced four-year-old is a late developer who didn’t run at two and made his debut only in April last year. He steadily progressed in six outings last season before finally breaking his duck with a maiden victory at Newcastle in October, producing a career-best performance.

Cracksking hasn’t looked back since and after finishing fifth on his seasonal debut at Newbury in April when probably in need of the run, he has recorded figures of 213.

He was beaten only a neck at Newbury when second there in May and defied a 2lb rise to land a 1m4f handicap on the all-weather at Kempton in June. He ran away with that race by a length and three-quarters and went off a warm favourite to follow up at the course last time.

Cracksking was unable to justify odds of 10-11 that day when third behind The Goat, who he had beaten on his previous start, but the selection probably wasn’t suited by the way that race shaped up tactically and still ran to his best off 5lb higher than for his last success.

He will need to take another step forward now that he is returning to turf in a stronger race, but is equally effective on grass and has had more time since his last run to develop. There is every chance that he will have made further physical progress.

The Goat is back in opposition again for the third time in a row according to the 14:45 Ascot Odds, but Cracksking has a 6lb pull in the weights with that rival this time and should be capable of reversing last-time-out form with that rival. That might be good enough for Cracksking to get back to winning ways.

Get your money back as a Free Bet if your horse finishes 2nd in this race - see here for further details.

Click the link to see all Today's Horse Races

Tune into Betfred Insights regularly to find my NAP of the Day