Nap of the Day: Applause for Easterby at Pontefract on Sunday

There is no Irish card on Sunday, with Galway's festival due to start on Monday, but Britain picks up the slack with a high-quality card each on the Flat and over jumps. At Uttoxeter, the eight-race card contains two Class 2 handicaps, one over fences and the other over hurdles. Following on from last week's Summer Plate card at Market Rasen, it is one of the strongest summer jumping cards.

But the feature action is at Pontefract with the main race a Listed event over a mile. The fields are healthy elsewhere on the card, with three of the seven races boasting double-figure fields at the time of declarations. The 16:25 is not one of those races, but it is an interesting sprint full of familiar faces. One such old stager looks like his time might be nearing, and is Sunday's nap for the Tim Easterby yard. Read on for my Nap of the Day.

Pontefract is a bit of a contradiction of a track. Despite having one of the most pronounced uphill finishes of any Flat track in the country, it nonetheless favours front runners, not least on the sprint track.

The reason for that is partly in the tight bend that brings runners into the straight. It is only two furlongs out and makes late moves much more difficult to pull off.

As a result, low draws tend to be favoured on the sprint track. Stall one in this five-furlong race belongs to SPIRIT OF APPLAUSE, who is just coming to the time of year when he took off in 2024 and is now handicapped to strike.

Tim Easterby's five-year-old has had a fairly quiet season, although there was more than enough promise in his third-placed runs behind Azure Angel at Redcar and Frank The Spark at Nottingham.

He ran at York last time, with an SP of 40/1 telling the story of the stiff task Spirit of Applause faced. He was bumped at the start and never got involved.

It was August last year when Spirit of Applause hit his stride. David Allan is jocked up for only the second time this year, so the suggestion is that Sunday might be the day.

A good draw encourages more positive riding, which has tended to bring about Spirit of Applause's best, and he represents value among a field of largely exposed sprinters.

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