Watch every race from Royal Ascot, live only on Sky Sports Racing; Jones Knows is continuing his search for winners on the final day with four big-price selections
Saturday 24 June 2023 07:10, UK
Our tipster Jones Knows is +16 in profit for Royal Ascot week and he is backing crowd favourite Pyledriver to continue his habit of winning at a monster price. He is one of four tips.
Swearing by ratings when it comes to betting on horses is only a part of the puzzle to solve and shouldn't be taken as gospel - yet, sometimes, a horse with the highest rating in a race is overlooked by the market.
It's happened here with Pyledriver - but some things never change.
Officially rated 124, a figure that equals him as the highest-rated horse to run over the entire week, the market still turns its nose up at this extraordinary horse that cost connections just 10,000gns. This horse has won seven races in his life with his starting prices returning 50/1, 14/1, 18/1, 10/1, 8/1, 14/1 and 6/4.
The popular six-year-old has not been seen since last year's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, in which he left Arc winner Torquator Tasso and the high-class Mishriff in his wake, while Emily Upjohn and Westover failed to run their races.
Hukum and Free Wind set a high bar for Pyledriver to hit, but he's made a career out of gobbling up horses from big stables. At his favourite track, he can do it again.
Perfect Power was a good friend of mine when running at Royal Ascot, landing the Norfolk Stakes and Commonwealth Cup, and I'm hoping his half-brother can keep up the tradition of winning races at the Royal meeting.
Like his older relative, he's also trained by Richard Fahey, who yet again showed he's a dab hand at getting two-year-olds to run big races here when Malc flew home for second in the Norfolk Stakes.
Golden Mind should relish the step up to seven furlongs judged on his power-packed finish to chase down Fusterlandia at Leicester.
Covey is a bit of a ridiculous price isn't he? I'm always very edgy about trusting Haydock form when the winner makes all as it's a front-runners benefit and although he won a competitive race like a good thing, he's still got questions to answer up in grade.
John Gosden has only ever saddled one winner from 25 runners in the Jersey too which suggests to me his best three-year-olds usually head for the Group Ones.
With such vulnerability about the favourite, we must attack Holloway Boy each-way as he returns to the scene of his greatest triumph when winning the Chesham Stakes on debut at 80/1 last season. I do like backing horses dropping down from Group Ones for this contest as they have a very strong record of nine wins from 73 runs - an overperformance on market expectation.
Switching back to a sounder surface from the 2000 Guineas should suit the Karl Burke charge, who also runs without a visor - a huge positive. In the last 10 years on the Flat in Class 4 races or above, horses who had the visor removed are working at a profitable nine per cent strike rate, showing a huge overperformance to market expectations.
If you'd backed every runner to have fitted that criteria during that time, you'd have made a profit of £394 (Betfair SP) to just £1 stakes.
Don't be afraid of an outsider in this race. If you had backed every horses outside the top four in the betting over the last 25 years, you'd have found 12 winners from 295 runners, including three at 33/1. There is no standout at the head of the market so having a pop at something makes sense.
Rohaan comes to life at Ascot, having won two Wokingham Stakes and a Group Three at the track. I'm not worried by his lacklustre return at Salisbury as he ran equally as bad on his reappearance last season at York before going on to land the Wokingham under Ryan Moore at 16/1. History may just repeat itself.
2pts EW on Pyledriver (13/2 with Sky Bet - Bet Here!)
2pts EW on Holloway Boy (10/1 with Sky Bet - Bet Here!)
