Battalion looks ready to fight.
15.15 Lingfield Group 3 Winter Derby
This race looks great for an investment, especially as one of my old favourites around here is blinkered 1st time. Grendisar has the blinkers applied 1st time today. I see this as a negative, of all the times to apply blinkers, surely it is not in the showcase race, either Marco Botti is an absolute genius and he knows this will bring out every fraction of Grendisar's ability, or he is desperate, and searching, for some way to try and get the best out of his charge. I have looked at Marco Botti, and looked at previous applications of blinkers, it is not positive. 12 winners from 110 runs. This gives me a very solid reason to avoid this horse today.
Surely this now presents a fabulous chance for Battlion to take full advantage of this situation. He will have to put in a decent effort as Micheal Stoute has Convey in here . I am quietly confident we can beat this horse on track fitness, Stoute is a superb trainer and it would be no massive shock if Convey is unwrapped and wins, he is the best officially rated horse in this field after all. This is not for me though, I simply cannot back this today coming here after his lay off, I think he will have other targets planned on Turf later in the season.
Battlion has shown a liking to this track and he appears to be very much on fire at present. He looks to have had the perfect preparation for what must be his target race. This looks today to be the horse the field have to beat, he looks to be holding the aces in this race and it is his to lose on my book.
