Thursday tips - 4th September
Chris Oliver previews Hove's open-race card on Thursday and runs us through his best bets of the evening.
Thursday tips - 4th September
Mellish (T4, 8.07 Hove)
Droopys Stat (T1, 6.42 Hove)
Zenith Sultan (T1, 8.24 Hove)
There are 11 opens on the menu at Hove this evening, including two finals over 500m.
Looking at the first decider and Mellish is fancied to strike in the Coral 500 Maiden Trophy final at 8.07. Maxine Locke’s dog made a promising debut in the heats, when showing smart early speed to cut loose and going on to score by a wide margin in style. He's a big, imposing sort with scope for plenty of improvement and the kennel appear to be hitting form again now. He has a bit to find on the clock with fellow heat winners Zenith Imminent and Bright Bono, but he is fancied to get first run again and prove tough to reel in.
Zenith Sultan can also improve on his run a week ago and he gets the nod in the Coral 500 Standard Trophy final at 8.24. The Richard Rees-trained dog was no match for Racenight Mikey when second in the heats but should improve for that first outing in over two months and much better is expected now. The May 2023 son of Ballymac Vic ran out a facile winner at Towcester prior to his layoff and mixed in good company in Ireland, while he may be best placed on the rails with the three heat winners possibly doing each other no favours out wide.
Droopys Stat was an eye-catching 500m winner here a week ago and he looks the one to beat in the puppy contest over the same trip at 6.42. The penny could be dropping with Heather Dimmock’s charge based on that evidence, as he hacked up in a pleasing 29.39 (calculated), and this race doesn’t look any tougher.
