Wolverhampton Preview: Black Granite can grind out another success

Black Granite is on a serious upward curve and can overcome a further rise in the weights to land the hat-trick in the 1m 1f nursery on this evening’s card at Wolverhampton (7.00).

The Jeremy Noseda trained gelding has shown marked improvement since going handicapping, landing a 7f contest at Salisbury off an opening mark of 67 before following up off 7lb higher in a competitive class 2 contest over a mile at Newmarket.

Black Granite was particularly impressive in the latter, travelling strongly on the heels of the leaders before taking up the running three from home and forging clear to score by 2 3/4 lengths.

It was a performance which suggested the son of Dark Angel was progressing at a rate of knots and had even more to offer.

Although the handicapper has reacted by hitting Black Granite with a further 9lb rise in the weights, that may not be enough to stop him going in again now dropped down to class 4 company in a race which has a far weaker look to it than the Newmarket contest.

Connections have also booked crack apprentice Cam Hardie to do the steering, and his claim takes an invaluable 3lb off Black Granite’s back.

In the 7f handicap (7.30), Deauville Prince is a fascinating contender now switched back to the Tapeta surface.

The Tom Dascombe trained gelding had some useful form as a juvenile, and ran a stormer on the Tapeta last year when a three length fourth to Soft Falling Rain in the Group 3 UAE 2000 Guineas at Meydan.

Deauville Prince backed that up with a solid second to Now Spun in a Listed contest on the turf at the same venue off an official rating 105, and now gets into this class 3 handicap off 92.

It makes the four-year-old look potentially well-treated, and Deauville Prince showed that he retained plenty of ability on his penultimate start when beaten just a nose in a 12-runner contest at Haydock.

Although not at his best last time out at Ayr, it would be no suprise to see Deauville Prince bounce back and he is a massive player in this based on his run behind Soft Falling Rain if the switch back to the Tapeta surface has the desired effect.