Horse racing tips: Newmarket July Festival and Carlisle

The Moët & Chandon July Festival is the feature on Thursday afternoon and the three-day meeting gets off to a cracking start with a couple of excellent Group Two events. I will be filling in on the Carlisle action in the studio, and hopefully a couple of seriously well-in handicappers will pay for the day at least.

I have been singing the praises of Ella McCain and she has a clear chance of showing her talents aboard this course specialist.

The jockey won on Gullane One last week over course and distance and the six-year-old races off the same mark again since that win was in an apprentices’ event. McCain can claim her 5lb allowance now, making Gullane One extremely well treated here.

I expect McCain to get the lead from a middle draw and there doesn’t look to be many rivals in good enough form to catch Gullane One at the track where he always runs well.

This is always a competitive handicap, but four of the last six renewals have been won by up-and-coming three-year-olds against more exposed rivals and there’s a very good chance the trend will continue.

Legendary Day has won his last two races easily and was particularly impressive when coming from behind in a slowly run race last time at Leicester. He will definitely get a stronger pace here and that should suit him well, while his yard is in terrific form at present. Oisin Murphy is back on board and won on him on his penultimate start.

Legendary Day is up in grade, but his mark has only risen 4lb from his latest win over this trip and it is difficult to find negatives.

Patience has certainly proved to be a virtue with this five-year-old and trainer Dianne Sayer is certainly reaping the rewards.

Detective is an extremely well-bred horse by Kingman out of a Group 1-winning winning mare but looked useless in his early days. Maybe two outings over hurdles last summer frightened him into picking his feet up, but whatever has happened he is in cracking from at present and bids for his third success this season over this course and distance.

Paul Mulrennan is Sayer’s go-to jockey when available and the rider won on this horse last time. Given the potential for improvement in Detective’s pedigree, I imagine Mulrennan will make himself available for the ride for a good while yet.