Nap of the Day: John & Thady Gosden’s handicap debutante can shine at Windsor

There’s plenty happening on Monday this week and there are five meetings to sink our teeth into across the day. Cartmel provides the jumping action and the day’s other afternoon fixture is a Flat card at Ayr. Ballinrobe, Windsor and Beverley take us through the evening.

With plenty of racing taking place, there’s a little something to cater to everyone’s taste. One of Windsor’s more intriguing races is a Class 4 fillies’ handicap over 1m2f and it should be thoroughly competitive, with six of the seven runners having already won this season.

Our NAP of the Day lines up in this race and the horse in question represents the all-powerful John & Thady Gosden yard. Thoroughly unexposed, the three-year-old filly makes her first start in handicap company here and the best is surely yet to come.

Horse Racing Odds

19:50 Windsor - Sunshine Star @ 6/4

There’s a substantial £20,000 on offer for this race, with several very viable candidates amongst the field. Leading trainers John & Thady Gosden have a 29 per cent strike-rate at Windsor so far this season and the thrice-raced SUNSHINE STAR can add to their tally.

This daughter of Sea The Stars made her debut in a Class 2 novice over a mile at Kempton back in October and kept on well to finish second by half-a-length. It was obvious that she was going to thrive over longer trips as a three-year-old is definitely a filly to follow.

Needing the run badly on her reappearance at Sandown in April, she left that run well behind her when landing a Lingfield novice by just shy of five lengths last month. An opening handicap mark of 84 could prove to be very generous, so victory could well be on the cards.

One look at her pedigree is enough to encourage plenty of excitement, as she’s a half-sister to Oaks winner Soul Sister and Australian Group 2 winner Herman Hesse. The best is almost certainly yet to come from her and further progress seems very likely.

Ed Walker’s runner Capichera is also lightly raced and she needs to go under consideration, off the back of her eight-and-a-half-length victory in a Pontefract novice last time. Second in a Nottingham handicap before that, the winner went on to place at Royal Ascot.

Dream Camp was an impressive winner of a Southwell maiden over a mile on her penultimate start and the fourth has boosted the form by bolting up in a maiden since. Connections threw her in the deep end at Royal Ascot next time but this is obviously easier.

It’s the Gosden-trained filly who gets the nod however and there could be any amount of improvement to come, now tackling handicaps. She probably wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Listed race after her impressive win last time and she can follow up here.

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