Paddy's Pick 5: Our tips for Saturday's £50,000 jackpot

It would be rude not to have a go at Saturday's Paddy's Pick 5 with the small matter of £50,000 up for grabs.

The five feature races including the Group One Betfair Sprint Cup, the Group Three Sirenia Stakes for the juveniles and the customary complement of big-field handicaps and, while we have to whittle down several maximum fields and approaching 70 runners, here is our attempt with some reasoning below.

The competition is open to all Paddy Power customers, with full terms and conditions here. Make sure you avail of our Racing TV racecards for Timeform comments, pace maps and all the vital information you need for making your final selections. Good luck!

Seven of the 11 runners have won within their last two starts and all of them have hit the places in at least one of those runs, so this valuable handicap looks competitive.

A potentially notable feature here is that plenty of the fancied runners – Morgan Fairy, Spirit Of The Bay and Cabinet Maker – have double-figure draws in a 14-runner field. Runners are on the turn very shortly after breaking from the mile start at Kempton, while since 2010 the data shows that overall winning strike-rates decrease the higher you’re drawn in up to 20-runner handicaps over this course and distance (8.6% for stalls 1-3, 9.7% for stalls 3-6, 8.9% for stalls 6-9, 7.1% for stalls 9-12, 6.4% for stalls 12-15).

These horses are hold-up performers and clearly they can still win, but BALDOMERO gets the vote at quite a big price. A good all-weather performer, he’s still fairly unexposed over a mile for new connections and particularly so on synthetics. He looked the winner of the Lincoln Trial at Wolverhampton back in March and is only 1lb higher now, but with the added bonus here of Frederick Larson’s 5lb claim.

He has a handy draw in stall 3, while both horses either side of him (Helm Rock and Moon Island) both go forward so he should have some pace to latch on to. Trainer Mick Appleby and owners The Horsewatchers won this prize with Kasbaan in 2019.

The expected withdrawal of Soulcombe after a reported dirty scope will have big ramifications here with the brilliant Melrose winner likely to have taken all the beating.

Three-year-olds have a fine record in the Old Borough Cup - since 2000, six have won and seven more have placed from 35 runners, winning 17.1% of the time from just 11% of the total runners in performance 42% above market expectation. We'll see if a suitable candidate lines up next year!

Soulcombe would have been a strong fancy off bottom-weight but, in his absence, top-weight EUCHEN GLEN is favoured.

He's not getting any younger, but the former winner of this race has shaped with real encouragement in recent starts and most notably in the Ebor last time, when he was stuck behind a wall of horses with no option of switching out and consequently holding more or less next to no chance of making a genuine challenge.

Once in the clear he quickened well inside the final furlong and the Coursetrack sectionals provide further evidence of this, comfortably putting up the fastest final-furlong split. He was also quickest three furlongs from home and 0.01s away from the same feat in the penultimate furlong, while his fast finishing speed percentage (112.17%) underlines his fastest final three furlongs.

This is a good handicap, but it's not as strong as the Ebor while he's more likely to get a clear passage here up against 10 rivals rather than the 19 he had to try and pass at York.

Similarly to the London Mile Final, the stats show that an inside draw is favourable over this trip at Kempton with overall strike-rates since 2010 decreasing the higher a horse is berthed.

That’s not to put you off Mischief Magic, who represents a team with such a powerful clutch of juvenile colts this term, but preference is for KYEEMA to continue his progression and play a part in the shake-up.

Awkward on his first few starts despite being well-backed for the second of those, he looked much better in an admittedly straightforward task at Catterick before impressing with the way he went about things on nursery debut at the Ebor Festival, tanking along at York and perhaps iding close home in a career-best.

Most of these are unproven on the all-weather, but progeny of Siyouni have a notably good record on the all-weather at Kempton (17.6% strike-rate, £24.64 level stakes profit, performance 20% above market expectation) and this all-weather debut could bring about yet more from an improving gelding who holds a small experience edge over the main market principals.

The Group One feature has an open feel with a maximum field of 17 set to line up, the biggest since 2004.

That could have ramifications on how this race is run with the possibility of this field splitting into two groups, with higher-drawn runners potentially making a smaller group down the stands-side with the rest more down the middle.

If that step-up does transpire then it could suit the progressive BRAD THE BRIEF, who is getting better and better at this six-furlong trip and who is unbeaten in two starts this season since being trained by Hugo Palmer.

Brad The Brief posted a career-best in Ireland last time, showing ral tenacity at the finish, while he has patiently-ridden and slow-starting Castle Star and Chil Chil either side of him and could get into a nice rhythm up front. This front-runner has proven he can go well after a break and might just prove hard to pass at a decent double-figure price with likely rain-softened ground set to suit.

The final leg of this week’s Paddy Pick 5 doesn’t look especially straightforward, but generally this race looks bigger on overall numbers rather than the amount of progressive horses showing recent compelling form and ALLIGATOR ALLEY can follow up despite a 7lb rise.

He was expected to win at Thirsk last time and needed to be shuffled along to take closer order within the final two furlongs, but the Coursetrack sectionals show he quickened well late on rather than relying on the leaders fading – the visuals arguably lend to the latter impression – and he had plenty in hand at the line in a commanding win that was much deserved after several recent efforts in which he didn’t get the rub of things.

The runner-up has since gone in while the fourth ran better than respectably next time, so the rise in the weights looks feasible against higher-class but somewhat exposed opposition. He was a Listed winner as a juvenile, so he should have some wriggle room off his current rating.