Hugo Palmer: She’s been an absolute revelation of late

Top trainer and Coral ambassador Hugo Palmer discusses his four runners at Newmarket and Southwell on Thursday.

Newmarket 3.35 – Soldier’s Gold

I must say I didn’t expect it to be such a big field because when I declared there were only six or seven runners in there. For all that he’s the most exposed in the field he’s not a million miles off the principles on ratings, and I do think he can put his experience to good use here. There are a lot of horses coming in here off the back of winning a maiden, so while they bring great potential to the race, they’ve yet to prove they are up to this sort of level.

Soldier’s Gold ran a really good race at Doncaster last time and he’s been in really good form at home since, so I’m very happy with him going into this. I think the sharp downhill 7f at Newmarket will suit him, Oisin Murphy rides him as he did at Doncaster, and they seemed to get on well that day, so I’m very hopeful he can run a really nice race once again.

Newmarket 5.18 – Victoria Falls

She’s been an absolute revelation of late has Victoria Falls, and she comes here in pursuit of the hat-trick after two very good wins at Newmarket and Thirsk. Who’d have thought that after being beaten so many times off marks in the low 60’s that we’d be coming here looking for the hat-trick off 73, so it’s quite extraordinary how she’s turned things round. In July it looked for all money that the handicapper knew all about her, and she was a victim of her own consistency having constantly ran well in defeat, but now you could say she’s starting to look like a rather progressive filly.

I expect she’ll be near the head of the market in this race, and although she’s 1lb wrong in the handicap, we do claim a valuable 3lb for having Connor Planas on board, so I’m really looking forward to running her again. I don’t think she’ll have any problems handling the undulations of the July course, so although she is up in grade, I expect her to go close again.