Dave Nevison's York tips: best bets for day one of the Dante Festival

Harry Eustace has his team in excellent form but is enduring a frustrating recent run, with no winners since this horse took apart a decent Epsom handicap in April. 

Most of the Eustace's runners since then have run very well and many have been placed, but a win has been elusive. 

has been raised 9lb for that easy victory last time out but looks as though he might be an improved type for his new trainer. 

It could also be that this race, which lacks a pacesetter, suits him very well as, even though he habitually starts slowly, he quickly gets himself up with the pace and that style of running does well at . Jim Crowley gets on well with him, too.

Paul Midgley’s team of sprinters run themselves in and out of form periodically all year round, and he seems to have hit one of those hot streaks just at the right time for this big meeting, with a couple of winners and a few places over the past few days. 

The Yorkshire trainer picked up from Clive Cox and has run the six-year-old four times this spring. His mark has dropped by 6lb over those runs but he has shown on more than one occasion that he retains ability. 

He is now 4lb below his latest win which came in October 2022 but he ran very well off a rating of 93 in July last year. 

Lethal Nymph, when he was trained in the South, spent a lot of time successfully racing at stiff tracks like Ascot, but he could easily find the Knavesmire might suit his front-running style very well. 

On balance, I think good to firm ground suits him best and with plenty of things seemingly in his favour, I believe Lethal Nymph might go very well here. 

It goes without saying that Tim Easterby will have his horses primed to win one of these York handicaps and Burglar’s Dream will hopefully have a good go at breaking his maiden here. 

The four-year-old is very lightly raced and may well have had problems, but probably ran his best race on his reappearance when a very good second at Beverley in April. 

He has not been raised for that, despite being beaten just a half length, and if he is physically well this season he could be poised to improve and might well be very well handicapped. 

Duran Fentiman hasn’t ridden him since his debut but hopefully will not need to be overly aggressive on him to get a good position in this big-field handicap, and Burglar’s Dream can show what he promises to be capable of. 

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