Cartographer excites at Newmarket

Coral’s take on day one of the July Festival

Day one of the July Festival at Newmarket and Coral punters have a fantastic few days of horse racing ahead. Thursday’s card is headlined by the bet365 Handicap, due off at 3.00pm, and there’s also the Falmouth Stakes and July Cup to look forward to over the weekend.

We bring you closer to the action, bet on every race here, from an exciting opener to the lucky last. Why not try your hand at landing a big price accumulator to mark day one in style? Our race-by-race selections should nudge you in the direction of a winner or two, while Coral’s racing team preview Thursday’s headliner.

Traders seem to be on the money

A whopping 20-runner field is entered in the bet365 Handicap, disputed over six furlongs on what is expected to be good ground. As you would expect, it’s a wide-open market, and Coral traders have Cartographer priced as the early favourite, with 13/2 currently available. There’s plenty to like about the thee-year-old filly who is in great form, and we can see where odds compilers are coming from on that one.

Martyn Meade’s hope arrives at track with a CV boasting two wins and two placed efforts from four starts. That form is made all the better by the fact she won over course and distance on her last go, less than two weeks ago in a fillies’ handicap. She went off a convincing favourite that day, and lived up to the hype, beating runner-up Storm Cry home by 3 ½ lengths.

Similar effort to last time will be enough

She was hugely impressive there, making all and running her rivals ragged. Judging by that effort there’s plenty more to come from Cartographer. She’s been budged up 9lbs in the weights on the back of that success, and faces much more in terms of competition here, but if she can show the kind of improvement we’re expecting, there’s no doubt she’ll double up.