Sandown Tips: Flaming Stone can strike for the champ

It’s an action-packed day of racing across Britain and Ireland on Thursday with seven meetings taking place. Amongst those is the afternoon Flat card at Sandown, with six races from 14:10-16:55 headlined by the Listed Star Stakes at 15:15. The ground is expected to be good, good to firm in places at the Esher venue.

We’ve picked a trio of contenders to consider including Flaming Stone, as champion jockey William Buick picks up a handy outside ride on the promising Juddmonte-owned filly.

Horse Racing Odds

14:10 Sandown – Lil Guff @ 7/2

The opening 5f sprint offers another chance for LIL GUFF to get the win she has been threatening. The mare has started favourite/second favourite in her four most recent outings and, despite some promising form, has been unable to get her head in front.

A return to front-running tactics at Bath (5½f, firm) very nearly paid off last time, only for Abolish to find form and take advantage of a lower rating as he came home strongly to collect late on.

Lil Guff is rated 6lb lower than when scoring over course and distance last summer. Conditions underfoot are optimal and the Daniel and Claire Kubler team could hardly be in better form with a 30 per-cent strike-rate in the past two weeks.

Oisin Murphy is back in the saddle this time and he might be able to dominate this contest from the get-go from stall two.

15:15 Sandown – Flaming Stone @ 13/8

The feature race is the Listed EBF Star Stakes for fillies over 7f.

Murphy has been claimed by Qatar Racing to partner Del Ray, a debut winner at Lingfield on the turf in May and one with plenty of promise, but that leaves champion jockey William Buick to lay claim to the mount on FLAMING STONE for Andrew Balding in the Juddmonte silks.

The Kingman filly was only fourth on her debut in an above-average Newmarket novice in May over 6f, the form of which reads well. She duly built on that when making all to win at Newbury in a 7f novice last month with Murphy on board. They made every yard and cruised away to a four-length win, with the second and third both running well next time.

Flaming Stone now steps up in class and, with Murphy required elsewhere, the champion jockey gets a chance to add to his impressive 22 per cent Sandown strike-rate over the last five seasons.

16:55 Sandown – Samoon Star @ 5/4

Given her pedigree, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that SAMOON STAR defied a lowly opening mark of 60 at Leicester four weeks ago to shed her maiden tag.

The Dubawi filly hadn’t shown much in three runs in novice/maiden company – she was 150/1 at Chelmsford in June – but duly improved for the switch to handicaps and beat five rivals at Leicester for Hughie Morrison and David Egan.

She did so in pleasing fashion, travelling best through the race and merely being kept up to her work late on to get the verdict. A 3lb rise is negligible and she’s in receipt of weight from the field here. Further progress seems assured and she should be hard to topple in the Sandown finale.

Today’s Horse Races

Horse Racing Tips from Betfred Insights.