Best Bets – Saturday 30th May

MADIYYA has been knocking on the door for a while now and I thought her last start performance indicated she needed a rise in trip. She will be even fitter now being third-up from a spell. Her last win was over this track/distance 12 months ago, so I’m hoping for a repeat of that effort and breaks back into the winner’s stall here.

SIMURGH will have taken plenty of improvement out of his last start victory here. He has only had the five starts in his brief career, he’s a big strider and I’m confident Craig Williams has a good read on him now after that win. He rises to a BM84 here today but that shouldn’t be of any concern, this guy looks to be going places and will be hard to beat once again. 

Hard to look past the first-up winner, WESTERN EMPIRE in this weight-for-age contest at Belmont. If this race were a handicap, he would be giving the remainder of the field many kilos start, so he looks very well in on weights. He has won three times second-up and the step up to the mile should be no concern, as he has also won three times over that distance also. He appears to be one of the best bets of the day.

PROVIDENCE has shown plenty of talent in his short career but has usually found it hard to win, only breaking through earlier this year at Wyong. He ran a great race in the Frank Packer Plate over the Sydney Carnival and then finished strongly last time when third in the Rough Habit at Doomben. He has always looked like a mile-and-a-half colt and should prove hard to beat here in the Derby.

The Kingsford-Smith Cup is a very tricky affair, but happy to have something each-way TRANSATLANTIC at a nice double-figure quote. He battled on well enough first-up on heavy ground in the Victory Stakes here three weeks ago and he should have improved from that effort. He has won three times second-up so expect him to look the winner at some stage in the run.