Page Fuller's Saturday tips: "He will be difficult to beat"

There’s plenty of action to get excited about at Haydock on Saturday, with the Betfair Sprint Cup taking centre stage, and I think Lazzat is the one to beat returning to Britain.

He produced a dominant win at Royal Ascot in June, and if he repeats that performance here, he will be difficult to beat. 

The French raider broke the third fastest from the stalls at Ascot and hit a Top Speed of 41.18mph plus galloped powerfully to the line with a Finishing Speed Percentage of 103.4%.

His overall time scored 9.2 out of 10 on the RaceiQ Time Index, which is one of the highest our model has seen over a mile.

In the past 12 months, James Doyle has ridden three winners from eight rides at the track, operating at a strike-rate of 37.5%. His A/E figure of 1.59 also shows he has ridden an extra winner than the odds of his mounts would have expected him to.

I also believe there’s one contender that has flown slightly under the radar on the card, and that is Prague who runs in the opener (1.15). It looks dangerous to underestimate the value of his form this season as, two starts ago, he was beaten less than five lengths by Group One winner Never So Brave, and while his fourth in Listed company at Pontefract last time was a shade underwhelming, the overall time was impressive for the level, scoring a 9.9/10. The five-year-old also appeared to be caught out on the stiff track having set decent fractions from the front and faded late on.

The return to Haydock will suit, and he has the most favourable draw in stall one for this course and distance on this ground. The RaceiQ data shows his draw has secured an advantage of 0.57 lengths, while Make Me King’s draw (stall eight) has shown a disadvantage of -0.36 lengths.

I believe this five-year-old will bounce back to form on Saturday.