Tony McFadden provides an overview of the key things to note on Monday.
Three points of interestWhite Birch takes high rank among top horses in training
White Birch was a smart three-year-old, notably finishing third in the Derby at Epsom, but he raised his game another notch during a truncated campaign at four last season when he won all three starts.
The clear pick of those efforts was on what proved to be his final start of the season when he made the Group 1 breakthrough in the Tattersalls Gold Cup. White Birch was up against Auguste Rodin, the previous season’s Derby winner, but he tanked his way into contention and soon put daylight between himself and his main rival, ultimately scoring by three lengths in impressive fashion.
That earned White Birch a high-class Timeform rating of 128 and that was a level that only Juddmonte International one-two City of Troy (130p) and Calandagan (129) ended up exceeding in Europe last year. It puts him on the same perch as the dominant stayer Kyprios and the impressive King George winner Goliath.
It might be asking a lot for White Birch to run up to his very best after nearly a year off, but his Tattersalls Gold Cup form places him 7 lb clear of Los Angeles on Timeform’s weight-adjusted ratings for the Mooresbridge Stakes (16:10 Curragh), a race he won impressively last season.
Spitzbergen an eye-catcher on debut
Spitzbergen impressed on the clock as well as on the eye when runner-up on debut at Chelmsford in November as he was awarded the Sectional Timing Flag as well as the Horse In Focus Flag.
Spitzbergen caught the eye of Timeform’s reporter when missing out by only a short head despite taking a wide trip and proving green under pressure in the straight, and he was given the Horse In Focus Flag to mark him out as one likely to be of interest next time.
Sectional times paint an even more positive picture of Spitzbergen’s performance in a race run at just a modest tempo. He was further back than ideal but made eye-catching headway on the turn for home and ended up running the fastest final three furlongs, despite understandably not proving as streetwise as rivals with experience to call on.
He returns in Kempton’s six-furlong maiden (14:00) with the look of a likely improver (as denoted by the Timeform ‘small p’).
Tregoning record points to Ashen improvement on handicap debut
Marcus Tregoning has operated at a strike rate of 12.7% in British Flat races since the start of 2020, but that increases to a noteworthy – and impressive – 19.7% when focusing on his handicap debutants in that timeframe.
Backing each of Tregoning’s 62 representatives to £1 level stakes would have resulted in 12 winners and a profit of £39.50, so his runner in the second division of the mile handicap (16:55) at Kempton on Monday, Ashen, is entitled to plenty of respect on his handicap debut.
An opening BHA mark of 74 isn’t obviously lenient based on what Ashen showed in three starts in novices, but his trainer’s tendency to bring horses along gradually and an encouraging effort when sixth at Kempton last time suggests there could still be better to come.
His latest Timeform report notes that he’s the “type to do better in handicaps” and he still has the Timeform ‘small p’.
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