BEST of the BETS

I think I may have found a bit of a value horse in the opener at York. In terms of value, I mean that I think it would be a fair bit shorter than the current 9/1 if running for one of the "bigger" stables.

TITUS 1:55 York @ 9/1 (B365)

Declan Carroll has had a couple of nice winners in the past week, as well as a couple of others knocking on the door, which initially got me looking into this one.

A Dansili gelding who moved to the stable from Dermot Weld at the start of the year, so I initially looked back for some early stuff. I found that in May last year, he was still an 20/1 ante-post hope for The Derby, and prior to that (in October 2016) Weld had this to say about him....

“He’s a very big colt with a lot of potential and will probably appear in a Classic trial towards the end of April or early May. What his distance will be next year I’m not sure, but he’s a colt with plenty of pace. He’ll always want good ground and that’s one of the reasons we came here–for the nice ground. He’s 16.2 [hands] and what I like about him is that, for a horse that will probably stay well, he has plenty of pace. I would expect him to be a stakes horse next year. He has an awful lot to learn as he’s never been away before. It’s all new to him and he’s a gorgeous big horse”

The Derby obviously never happened, and he had 3 pretty uninspiring runs for Weld in Ireland last year before making the stable switch. Has had 6 runs this year, with a win at Wetherby in a Class 5 Novice Stakes.
However has had two interesting runs at York, both over 1 mile 2 and a bit, the form of which really got my hooter twitching!!

In May, 4/ 1/4 length third behind THUNDERING BLUE, who we saw run on very strongly behind Roaring Lion to take 3rd the other day. Then in July a 4th place in the John Smith's Cup, 2 lengths behind THUNDERING BLUE again, and only a neck behind KYNREN who very nearly got to the Johnston record-breaker yesterday, and was well fancied by many.

Claimer Ger O'Neill is onboard again today, and I find him more than capable, which in theory takes the horse's mark down to 87.
Stepping up in trip, judging by comments on recent runs "Staying On" coupled with Weld's comments about speed etc. Ithink he may benefit from the 1m mile 4.
I really fancy that this one could be well in today.

And finally, and most importantly of all WHAT A BLOODY GREAT NAME!!

Would love to hear people's thoughts...