The Traders' View: Royal Ascot review and a big price Nap at the Curragh

Max Liu
24 June 2022
3:00 min read

It's Irish Derby day at the Curragh on Saturday

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The Betfair Traders are back with their reflections on Royal Ascot and a look ahead to Saturday at the Curragh including a Nap at a big price...

"My nap of the weekend comes at a big price in the 14:00 at the Curragh tomorrow... The Ken Condon trained Affable ran a great race here at the Curragh two starts ago on Guineas weekend..."

Back Affable 14:00 Curragh @ 21.020/1

Successful Royal Ascot despite Friday drama

Royal ascot provided brilliant drama across the five days. From a trading perspective, every day except Friday was textbook.

From our point of view, Friday was tough. The opener was won by Meditate for the ever popular Aidan O'Brien. We were very keen to take on Meditate, making that result worse than a normal winning favourite for us.

Four favourites winning the next five races put us in a very bad position coming into the last. Thankfully for us, the very well backed Ladies Church getting beaten took the sting out of the day. It was a losing day from a bookmaking point of view but it would have been dramatically worse if she had of gone in.

The rest of the meeting went well for us with plenty of horses we were keen to take on that were beaten, such as Golden Pal, Blackbeard and Alfred Munnings.

There were wins for plenty of horses that we were avoiding laying, such as Dramatised in the Queen Mary, Kyprios in the Gold Cup and Magical Lagoon in the Ribblesdale.

Tuesday makes splash before Curragh test

Tuesday being supplemented made a big splash in the market for Saturday's Irish Derby. She jumped straight to the top of the market as the 6/4 fav and resulted in all of her rivals being pushed out in price. It certainly was a bold move by O'Brien to throw her up against the colts at this early stage of the year but it's one we have to respect.

At the moment, a lot of the top class three-year-olds are fillies, such as Inspiral and Homeless Songs, so it will be interesting to see if Tuesday continues that trend in the middle distance division. If she does the business who knows we may get a top class clash between her and Dessert Crown down the line.

Where's the money?

At the moment Westover is our biggest loser in the Irish Derby, Ryan Moore's mount Tuesday is also a small loser in the book. It seems punters are latching onto the top two at this stage but its early days yet and there will be plenty of changes to come by 15:45 tomorrow afternoon.

Saturday Nap

My nap of the weekend comes at a big price in the 14:00 at the Curragh tomorrow. I like the credentials of the Ken Condon trained Affable. She ran a great race here at the Curragh two starts ago on Guineas weekend when outpaced over 6f before making ground late in the day all the way to the line.

She stepped up to 7f at Gowran last time and was a little disappointing but Gowran is a sharper test then the Curragh and, at a big price, I'll take a chance that this stiff test over 7f will suit her better.

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Watch the Traders' View here...

@LHayhoe and trader @SamKirwan9 chat:

How Royal Ascot went after all was said and done.
The Irish Derby market.
Where the cash is going this weekend.
Sam's NAP pic.twitter.com/LNbJj7cDUZ
-- Betfair Racing (@BetfairRacing) June 24, 2022