15:05 - king george v stakes

Cracking handicap with improvers galore and 9 LTO winners, 7 of which fill the front of the market.  Most of these are class 4/5 winners, the exception being Bertineli who won the 52K London Gold Cup at Newbury, and has been raised just 5lb since 2l covered the first 6 home and in quality it was a similar race to this 51k Hcap and the extra weight will will make it difficult for the top weight with just 3 of the last 20 winners carrying more than 9.0.

My EW fancy is the Charlie Johnston trained – Stuth 18/1 BOG (Lad, Bet365, Coral) EW first 6 or 5.
Charlie is averaging 23% for June and his dad used to like this race with 5 winner in the last 21 runnings.

Struth (rated 91) could only finish 2nd to the 84 rated Saint George at Doncaster beaten 2l with Think First (96) 6l behind the winner.  Saint George must have been the proverbial good thing that day receiving 12lb from Think first and beating him 6l. Yesterday they met on levels in the group 2 Queens Vase at Royal Ascot and even with a 12 pound turnaround Saint George was able to extend the winning distance from 6l to 9l, having been beaten 1½ lengths by the 110 rated Gregory. Looking at the  3rd and 4th’s ratings of 101 and 102 btn 5¼ and 6½ would have  Gregory running to about a 107/108 mark. It’s strong form and even Think First ran to it’s new rating of 95 and Saint George running to about a 105/106.

Struth Drops back to 1m4f today but won over the distance on it’s previous start at Chester and has won on both soft and GF.

It looks like Struth’s new rating of 95 is a fair mark on the basis of yesterday’s race and it may well be lenient if he’s able to progress a little more, but with EW places paying 5 with Lad and Coral and 6 with Bet365 at 18/1 he looks a good bet for at least a place at that price.