Eclipse

When the market for this race was unveiled my initial thought was that I wanted to be with The Fugue at around 5/1. She ran very well at the Royal meeting where she as anchored towards the rear in a relatively slowly run Prince of Wales's Stakes before finishing to great effect, ending up around 3 lengths behind Al Kazeem. However I read in one or two places after that contest that she was going to revert to races against her own sex and that put me off backing her ante post for Snadown. She has been declared for the race however and pleasingly the presence of Declaration of War who was supplemented I believe (I was away in Spain last weekend so am not 100% sure) means her price has held up. In fact the Queen Anne winner being the hype horse that he is also means favourite Al Kazeem, who was 6/4 ten days or so ago for this, is now available at over 2/1 on the exchanges. I've taken some of that as cover.

The aforementioned Prince of Wales's Stakes wasn't a particularly good renewal this year but it was a shed load better than the Queen Anne, which with the American horse Animal Kingdom not running his race and Elusive Kate tiring in the last furlong on her first outing of the season was more Group 2 or even 3 in quality. A lot of Ballydoyle runners are priced up on the effusiveness of the trainer's comments rather than the nuts and bolts of their form and at a very short looking 4/1 Declaration of War makes the market from a betting point of view and I've managed to snatch just short of 5/1 about Gosden's filly. I'll see how the market plays leading up to the race but I anticipate stepping in again.

Eclipse Stakes:
The Fugue £40w @ 49/10
Al Kazeem £30w @ 22/10