Rachel Candelora's top tips for Wednesday: Keep the faith in Minuty

While the action at Ascot last Saturday was nothing short of spectacular, I am very much looking forward to this weekend’s action in Qatar as Al Rayyan Racecourse is hosting their feature meeting of the year, the H.H. The Amir Festival.

This three-day Festival features six international races and this year the equine declarations are high quality, as are the jockeys that are participating over the weekend with likes of Ryan Moore, James Doyle, Oisin Murphy, Pierre-Charles Boudot, Jamie Spencer, Gerald Mosse, Maxine Guyon, Tyler Gaffalione, Oliver Peslier all in action.

The feature race of the Festival for Thoroughbreds is the Group One $1,000,000 H.H. The Amir Trophy over 12f on the turf and features the reigning champion The Blue Eye who is taking on six international challengers including Aidan O’Brien’s Hunting Horn, Raymond Tusk for Richard Hannon and Liam The Charmer for US trainer Mike McCarthy.

Elsewhere on Saturday, Andrew Balding has Stone Of Destiny running in the Group 3 $250,000 Dukhan Sprint over 6f, while George Scott’s Concierge, Gay Kelleway’s Global Spectrum, and Hugo Palmer’s Ours Puissasnt all tackle the Group 2 $250,000 Al Biddah Mile – the same race Tip Two Win used as his 2,000 Guineas prep last year.

For me, the most exciting international runner is Gay Kelleway’s Global Spectrum. He was extremely impressive when winning on debut at Kempton at the end of last year, and then scoring another Kempton success, under a penalty, this month.

Yes, he is making his turf debut on Saturday, but he looks a classy animal and I love how Gay is confident enough to take him traveling for the big money.

Looking towards Wednesday’s action with three all-weather meetings, including some nice prizes at Chelmsford and a Fast Track Qualifier at Newcastle, I am going to focus my attention on the flat.

This is the fourth and final Fast Track Qualifier for the three-year-old AW Championship and a classy field of seven line up to secure their slot on Good Friday.

Don Armado is a classy horse who showed he can handle the All-Weather just as well as he can handle the turf when a staying on fourth last time out in a Kempton Fast Track Qualifier.

With both Deep Intrigue and Quiet Endeavour, along with Walkman and Barbill, this race will be run at a fast pace and Newcastle is a track where closers are much more suited than those more towards the fore.

Don Armado will get a perfect stalking trip under Callum Rodriguez who rides Newcastle particularly well. In fact, Callum has ridden almost three-times as many winners at Newcastle than any other track in the UK, and he looks set to be a nice price to take on the top few in the market.

Since moving to Oliver Sherwood’s yard, Geordielad has been disappointing over hurdles, so Sherwood did something he had only done on 74 previous occasions – he ran Geordielad on the flat, and in the process collected his ninth flat winner.

Given the ease in which Geordielad won over 1m6f at Chelmsford, in a higher grade, it seems a good move to run him again on the flat, this time at Wolverhampton.

Eddie Greatrex let him bowl along in front last time, always doing enough to hold off Your Band, who has won again since at Chelmsford.

While he is drawn in stall 8 today, he appears, on paper anyway, to be the lone speed here, so Eddie should just be able to let him roll on again.

A filly, from the family of 5f specialist Mirza, that I have been following since her very promising debut run at Kempton last November, but has been slightly disappointing in her three runs since.

However, last time out is a total “put a line through it” race as she was hampered going into the first turn from her prominent position from stall one and got shuffled back before blatantly not staying the 7f trip on handicap debut.

Now back into a novice stakes, she is carrying 15lbs less than last time, and dropped to the minimum trip with first-time blinkers applied, she is going to be the one to catch from stall one.

Massive respect has to be given to Chelmsford as they have thrown some serious money into this extra meeting that they did not know about until last week.

With £19,000 up for grabs in this staying contest, my money is going on Lucky Deal who has earned over £43,000 in prize money at Chelmsford from just three starts, two of those being victories.

Last time out at Kempton he was stepped up in trip to two miles for the first time and showed with a second place effort, behind former Queen’s Prize winner Cayirli, that the extra distance definitely suits.

Now back to the track he loves, he should get a pace scenario that suits his closing run style better with three of his rivals showing prominent run styles.

Now, normally I would stay away from a closer at Chelmsford due to the kick back but Lucky Deal has shown in the past he loves staying on down the Chelmsford stretch.