Free horse racing tips for Monday: Gold rates value at 16-1

The Festival meetings at Goodwood and Galway always provide a wonderful week of action with the nature of each venue guaranteeing plenty of excitement plus, inevitably, a few hard-luck stories.

Glorious Goodwood, in particular, promises to be just that with a week of sunny weather and gentles breezes forecast for the picturesque Sussex venue. There really are few better places to be when the weather is favourable, although it helps if you can find a winner or two.

Galway’s seven-day marathon begins on Monday, on rain-softened ground, with the €100,000 Connacht Hotel Handicap being the first-day highlight. I’ve a tip for that 20-runner staying contest plus selections at Ayr and Windsor.

Be lucky this week and, if you cannot attend, enjoy all the action live on Racing TV.

Tilsitt has either won or been placed in his past nine starts at Ayr and, with the excellent Danny Tudhope riding him for the first time, looks a solid each-way play here at the 10-1 on offer.

He’s never won off a mark this high, but he’s only 2lb higher than when scoring at the Scottish venue in May and he followed that with a good fourth in a typically competitive Carlisle Bell plus creditable third back here just 12 days later.

A 22-day break should have helped refresh his batteries and he looks ready for this move back up in trip.

His trainer, Mike Smith, also runs Glasses Up, whose six career wins at Ayr include landing this prize two years ago. He made the unexposed Noble Anthem, who he meets again, dig deep here earlier in the month but one win in his past 25 races points to him being tricky to win with these days.

Noble Anthem is a warm favourite to win again, but he gave his supporters a scare before getting the job done last time and it is a shade disconcerting that he is tried in cheekpieces.

Willie Mullins saddles six in this €100,000 contest and has another sitting on the reserves’ bench. You can give all his runners a shout and many will not look beyond the maestro, but sometimes it pays to swim against the tide.

Lynwood Gold carries a wealth warning as the grey can sometimes completely blow the start, as he did in this race last year when he must have given his 18 rivals something like a 15-length head-start when drawn widest of all. Take a look for yourselves, above.

In the circumstances, he performed wonders to be a staying-on fifth, being beaten only five lengths. It doesn’t take a genius to realise he’d have almost certainly won had he got away on terms, and he’d also run well when third at the Festival the previous year, when trying to concede 8lb to Princess Zoe.

Lynwood Gold moved from Jessica Harrington to Henry de Bromhead in September of last year and shaped well when fifth in the Irish Cesarewitch on his first run for the yard soon after. He’s run only twice since and was returning from more than eight months off when a close fifth at Killarney this month. Encouragingly, he started fine and I imagine it was something of a prep for this.

The recent rain will help bring all his stamina into play and De Bromhead has also snapped up the services of the promising John Gleeson, who takes off 7lb. He has impressed in winning on three of his five rides on the Flat for Joseph O’Brien, and has also chalked up six wins over jumps, five of those being in bumpers.

William Buick is turning the Jockeys’ Championship into a procession but the battle for the apprentices’ title promises to be a cracker with Benoit De La Sayette and Harry Davies locked together on 31 winners, and Ryan Sexton not far behind them on 23.

De La Sayette has the best strike-rate of the trio and, while some of his rides tend to be over-bet, he has also been easily the most profitable to follow. None of his five rides on the Windsor card are bigger than 4-1, with Baez making plenty of appeal in the extended 11-furlong handicap that closes the card.

The David Menuisier filly has looked raw in her first five races with slow starts being a feature, but that didn’t stop her going close to clawing back an in-form rival at Chepstow last time when, in keeping with her pedigree, she was well served by stepping up in trip.

She’s been nudged up 3lb in the ratings but that is offset by her rider’s claim. Hopefully, the penny is beginning to drop and if De La Sayette can get her away on terms then the combination should be in business.