Hugo Palmer Saturday runners blog: 'I really like him but this could be a very hot race'

We were going to run this horse at Goodwood, but he had such a bad draw we decided against it.  We also wanted to bring him back to seven furlongs, we always thought he would stretch out and stay a mile, but he just hasn’t progressed as his pedigree would suggest he should.

We put cheekpieces on him in the Britannia at Royal Ascot, he showed an enormous amount of speed that day, before not really getting home, so this drop back to seven, under a more patient ride, should suit, albeit this is something of a fact-finding mission.

This is a 0 – 90 handicap, but for the level of prize money on offer, it was never going to attract horses rated near 90, and so it’s proved, which does mean we’ve got in easily off a mark of 65.  Dubai Time took her time to win her first race, but she was really tough at Chepstow, and while she does need to step forward again here, she’s off a lightweight, she looks well, she should love the quick ground, and I hope she can run a nice race.

We run two in this novice race.  The Northern Lord ran Ok on his debut, I suspect he is going to come more into his own in handicap company, but this doesn’t look a deep race so I hope he can run well.

Roman Fortress is hard to predict, on the pick of his homework he could run quite nicely on debut, on the worst of his work he could run quite badly!  He’s typical of his sire [Calyx] in that he’s a bit quirky.  He had an injury at two and has taken time to come back, so it will be interesting to see how he gets on here and we can plan from there.

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