15:45 Goodwood: Bookies to set sail once Harbour Watch wins
Published:It was a miserable day for the bookmakers yesterday and things aren’t about to get much better.
Having cleaned up on the opening two days, the bookies watched the punters get their own back yesterday and today’s Richmond Stakes can really hurt the money men today.
Harbour Watch is the third of the favourites we’ve tipped up today – read about the others here – and the Richard Hannon and Richard Hughes combination can strike again for punters.
Richard Hannon has won this race for the last three years in a row and in Harbour Watch he has a horse who is capable of producing special runs.
The Richmond Stakes has seen a real shift in balance in the last four years and horses with Group race form have started to come to the fore.
Bannock and Silverheels are the two horses that come into the race with Group form behind them and Bannock has to be respected at 8/1, but the preference is for Harbour Watch.
Harbour Watch may have never featured in a Group race but his time when winning at Newmarket last time out was just 0.00.20s slower than Frederick Engels, winner of the Group 2 July Stakes on the same day – a race Bannock finished third in.
Five winners of this race were maintaining unbeaten records and Harbour Watch is looking for a hat-trick of wins following two victories in his only two starts.
Like Strong Suit, jockey Richard Hughes holds a high opinion of this horse and while he is yet to be tested he can prove himself a class apart today.
