Saturday Racing Tips: President can rule in big-field handicap says Tony Calvin

I started off trying to write this column via my inadequate phone (and signal) as the NHS wifi blocked all gambling and betting-related sites on my laptop, and I wasn't IT-savvy enough to circumvent the problem.

Such are the perils of working in our murky little world...

Anyway, I struggled on (for a while at least) so let's crack on, starting at Ascot.

Lots going for Johnson-Houghton raider

First up is the 17-runner 1m4f handicap at 13:45, a race which Eve Johnson Houghton won with Count Calabash in 2018, and I reckon she has a very plausible candidate in here with HMS President, who is a decidedly fair price at 9/1 each-way, five places, with the Betfair Sportsbook.

A good one, in fact, though the early 12s would have been even better.

I backed this horse first time up at Newbury last season and I was pretty filthy at the ride he got from Hollie Doyle - urgency was not the key word in the latter half of race - and I was even filthier when he won next time up at Windsor and I missed that he was running.

Hopefully, his reappearance over 1m6f at Musselburgh was similarly needed, especially as he was dropped 2lb for it. That puts him on a mark just 3lb higher than that Windsor success and he went on to run some crackers in defeat thereafter, too.

He finished second over course and distance here in August and then progressed to finish runner-up, off a 4lb higher mark than this, in the Mallard over an extended 1m6f at Doncaster.

So, with good course form (also fourth over 1m2f here at Royal Ascot in 2020), an attractive mark (with Georgia Dobie taking off another 3lb), and a run under his belt, I'd be disappointed if this ground-versatile performer can't at least get in the first five.

I am going to wave the white flag there as working in these conditions is not ideal, as Jimmy White should have said.

Hopefully, I will be back tomorrow morning, with a full rundown on the other ITV races.