Kevin Blake York Ebor Day 3 Tips: Back Platinum to be Queen of the Knavesmire

The Ebor Festival at York rolls on into Friday and the action continues to come thick and fast. The two races of most interest to me are at opposite ends of the distance scale and hopefully at least one of them will yield a good result.

Front-running tactics can help Quickthorn place

The Weatherbys Hamilton Lonsdale Cup (14:25) is a tricky race to fully assess at the minute with the usual doubts over the participation of Trueshan, with implications of his possible withdrawal both in terms of a Rule 4 deduction and the impact on each-way terms.

So, I'm going to attempt to bypass at least some of those doubts by making Quickthorn my place-only selection on the Exchange, a market that will retain three places even if the field is reduced to seven runners.

Trained by Hughie Morrison, the five-year-old has progressed up through the middle-distance and staying ranks in the last 18 months or so, but it has been since he switched to front-running tactics in recent starts that he has really started to boom.

The change in tactics has yielded two wins from his last two starts including a Group 3 at Sandown and a Group 2 at Longchamp. This race unquestionably represents deeper waters, but it wouldn't surprise if he made a bold bid from the front end and hit the frame at the very least.

Speedster can make 2yo weight allowance count

The Coolmore Wootton Bassett Nunthorpe Stakes (15:35) is the main event of the day and it has attracted a really interesting mix of established sprinters and up-and-comers. There is no contender more up and coming than the sole two-year-old representative The Platinum Queen and she is the one I favour.

Many, many years ago, I cut my teeth in the world of racing analysis by spending two years working for Timeform. It always stuck with me that their handicappers had a very bullish view that the section of the weight-for-age scale relating to two-year-olds that took on older horses in races like the Nunthorpe wasn't a little bit wrong, but very wrong, with two-year-olds receiving far more weight than they should.

With this in mind, I have found myself routinely calling for top sprinting two-year-olds to throw their hat into the ring in the Nunthorpe to test the theory, but the call has only been answered on a handful of occasions.

In that time, only Kingsgate Native has won the race for the young bucks, with Acapulco finishing second in the 2015 renewal of it.

On Friday, we'll get the chance to see the theory tested by the Richard Fahey-trained The Platinum Queen.

She has been electric in her last two starts, but particularly so in a conditions' race at Goodwood last time where she made all and set a new track record for two-year-olds. She ran a time that was a length faster than the winner of the Molecomb Stakes earlier on the card and did so whilst carrying 2lb more than that rival.

It was a sensational performance and stamps her as a very exciting prospect.

With the connections of The Platinum Queen having gamely supplemented her for this race, she will receive between 22lb and 27lb from her rivals. It is a colossal concession to receive and with Hollie Doyle in the plate, she might well be able to secure a famous victory.