Saturday tips: Haatem can bounce back at Haydock

Haatemcan bounce back to his best moving back up in trip in the Rose Of Lancashire Stakes (3.00) at Haydock Park today.

Some will have been disappointed that he failed to justify short-priced favouritism in the Summer Mile at Ascot last time, but he was not seen to best advantage.

Front-running Point Lynas, who eventually finished second, slipped the field and was effectively ignored. This meant that despite setting strong fractions, the rest of the field went considerably slower behind him, and this was to the detriment of Haatem, who had previously landed the Wolferton Stakes at Royal Ascot.

The four-year-old, trained by Richard Hannon, has a lovely, long stride, and has recorded either the largest, or second largest stride in 11 of the 15 races we have stored in the database for him.

He is at his most effective when utilising that stride, rolling along at his high cruising speed and galloping his rivals into submission.

This is further highlighted that in those 15 races, he has only once recorded the quickest Top Speed of the race.

The Summer Mile turned into something of a sprint, which did not play to his strengths.

His Finishing Speed Percentage of 105.27% is the second highest we have seen from him. Given the circumstances, he should be marked up for his length and a half defeat behind Never So Brave.

Back up in trip, on a more conventional track, this should be a straightforward task for him.

At Ascot, Milford sports the colours of Britain and Ireland in the Shergar Cup Sprint (3.20) and the combination of 6f and quick ground looks tailor made for him based on his runs this year.

He might not have won since his debut last year, but he has twice been beaten a neck this season, and last time Julie Camacho’s three-year-old clearly did not get the rub of the green when edged out by Showering at Chester.

As we all know, that track is all about track position, and Milford was at a disadvantage before the gates had even opened as he was drawn 9 of 9. A disadvantage of minus 0.3 lengths, to be precise, our Draw Advantage metric tells us.

He didn’t break the best, taking the sixth slowest to reach 20mph, and he was already 0.74 seconds behind the winner by the end of the first furlong.

Naturally, at Chester, that meant also challenging wide as he was stuck so far back. He clocked the fastest furlong of the race in the second furlong, trying to lay-up, which was also the only sub 11-second furlong of the contest.

He also completed the final furlong 0.34 seconds faster than the winner, showing how well he was staying on at the finish.

Milford did well under the circumstances to go so close, and it looks like he will be on a more level playing field today.