Vanessa Ryle: Revamped Racing League returns with Team Ireland as likely winners

The Racing League kicks off its second year this week with round one of the somewhat controversial team competition taking place up at Doncaster on Thursday evening.

Seven regional based teams do battle over the course of six weeks, at six different tracks, with the pool of jockeys and trainers connected to each team, all overseen by their managers.

The new initiative came in for some criticism in its first year but changes have been made off the back of the feedback they received and now, for all the concept remains very much the same, the format and rules have been tweaked to improve the product and the engagement.

TV coverage gives Racing League a chance to broaden appeal

Many new ideas in racing that look to threaten tradition can often be met with a prickly response and that may well be what you would have described the general feeling towards the Racing League from within the industry last year.

However, it's worth emphasising that this competition hasn't been created to please the traditionalist - it's been created to try and broaden racing's appeal to the public and, now with ITV also showing the event each week, the series has a real chance and a platform to do just that and catch the imagination of the more casual racing fan.

Year one of the Racing League taught us many things but one of the key take-aways was that the teams who were the most successful were the ones who embraced the series and tackled it with vigour from start to finish.

So, when looking at the outright betting for the winner of the series in 2022 the best bet may well be to look for a team who has a strong and crucially engaged squad behind them with a real desire to try and lift the title.

It is also worth noting that the team managers will have a lot more influence this time around with the aim being that the buck stops with them regards what runs where and who rides what.

Kevin Blake's Ireland team has a standout chance

Taking all that into consideration and looking at the ante-post market for the outright winner, Ireland (5/2) appeal as the most attractive options at this point.

Team manager and regular Betfair tipster Kevin Blake has a standout pool of trainers to provide the horsepower and who would all be very keen to get their hands on a share of the £2m prize money that is on offer.

They also have an excellent draft of jockeys involved thanks to Kevin's well thought out selection process that includes the likes of Tom Marquand, Rossa Ryan and Jason Watson.

None of the other teams have a manager with the race planning experience or expertise as Kevin and he has the added benefit of one of his trainers being David O'Meara which in turn means he has the expertise of O'Meara's race planner Chris Dixon - another excellent mind to have on your side when race planning is to the fore.

Put your Tryst in Twilight to give Ireland an early winner

Focusing in on the runners Team Ireland have declared at Doncaster on Thursday and they look to have excellent chances across the board.

Twilight Tryst is declared to run in the nursery at 18:40 and would be one of interest given how much went wrong for her when she won on nursery debut at Nottingham on her latest start.

She would need to progress on from that again on official ratings but a couple above her in the market have quick turnarounds to overcome and the O'Meara trained filly may also improve for getting on ground with just a fraction more ease in it given that she is by Twilight Son.

Landmark day for Boughey at Yarmouth

In that same race the market leader is X J Rascal for trainer George Boughey whose sensational rise in the training ranks gets a further boost on Thursday away from the Racing League as at Yarmouth's afternoon meeting Boughey will saddle his first runner for the Niarchos family.

Starshot makes his debut in the novice over 6f at 14:10 and may have a lot on his plate to beat the experienced Bresson but it will go down as a noteworthy day for Boughey to be training a homebred in the famous double blue silks.

The Niarchos family are well known for having runners in many yards across Europe and they have supported nine UK based trainers over the years with the majority of their winners provided by the likes of Sir Henry Cecil, David Lanigan and Sir Michael Stoute.

No doubt Boughey will be delighted to be joining such an illustrious list of names to be entrusted with training for the famous family.