S.P. Read Esq. Hoping for long distances at Sandown

Our daily columnist and pundit S.P. Read Esq heads to Sandown Park tonight for their big evening meeting of the year. The ground is testing – a reason to buy winning distances.

There are only six races on the Sandown card tonight but I am still tempted in to buy the distances with Star Spreads at around 15.5.

We need an average of 2.58 lengths per race and that looks eminently possible on ground that is now soft and heavy in places and we have some relatively small fields on the card tonight.

The danger with buying distances in soft/heavy ground is that often the can be quite slow in the early stages leading to sprint and sometimes bunch finishes but to counter that at Sandown – it’s a steep up hill finish and horses will need to be ridden out to the line.

The first two races on the card are probably the toughest for us to navigate. The opener looks quite competitive and the second race on the card, the National Stakes, is over the five furlong course which runs up the centre of the course and the ground is even more testing there. My hope here is that we see a performance that is quite special and it’s quite likely that all seven of the two-year-olds already have a win to their name.

We’ve got the two mile Henry II Stakes later on and on this ground is another race I’m pinning my hopes on there being a decent winning margin.

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