Pontefract Punts: Time to take a Calculated Risk

The Jamaican Flight Handicap (3.40) is the feature race on a competitive seven race card at Pontefract today, and Calculated Risk looks a worthy favourite to land the spoils.

The John Quinn trained gelding is a smart hurdler who was successful at Sedgefield on his penultimate start before finishing well beaten in the Coral Cup at the Cheltenham Festival.

The seven-year-old is relatively lightly raced on the level, but has won two and been placed twice from just eight starts.

The last of those successes came on soft ground at Ayr last September where he stayed on strongly to score by 1 1/4 lengths off a mark of 66 in a class 5 contest.

He was then far from disgraced when finishing sixth of 13 in a valuable class 3 handicap at Musselburgh off 73, and now drops back down into class 5 company off 1lb lower.

That gives him major claims of getting back on the winning trail, and the booking of Moore suggests that connections mean business.

Elswhere on the card, North Yorkshire-based handler Edwin Tuer looks to have two interesting contenders in the shape of Easy Terms and Gold Show.

Tuer only has around dozen horses in training but places them to good effect and has a 37.5% strike rate with his runners at the track in the past 12 months (three winners and one placed from eight runners).
His Easy Terms looks on a handy handicap mark in the 4.15 and has a good record fresh.

Her last two successes came back in 2012, where she won over today’s course and distance before following up in a competitive contest at York off a rating of 92.

She ran well in this contest 12 months ago when finishing fourth of 12 to Lady Loch off a mark of 96, and now gets into this year’s renewal off just 89.

That gives the seven-year-old every chance at the weights on ground that suits, and she has also won and run well after a break.

Gold Show is bidding to win the 5.15 for the second year in a row and has been given a big chance of doing so by the handicapper.