Curragh

The standout stat in this field: Boston Max wins roughly 1 in every 2 races — by far the best record here — and has won his last two races back to back, most recently at Chepstow just 13 days ago. The only genuine concern is that he has never raced on slightly soft ground, and today's conditions are a new test, but in-form horses with a 40% win rate don't come along often.

The editorial verdict singles out Amerilis as the each-way pick, and the reasoning is that her ninth-place finish last time at this same course was much closer than it looks — beaten only 3.5 lengths, which in a big field is genuinely competitive. She's never raced on today's slightly soft ground, but the Curragh form and that narrow defeat make her interesting at 7.5.

Cisterna won at Roscommon 23 days ago and has followed that with a place at Gowran Park, so recent form is solid — but the draw in stall 21 is a significant problem here. At this course and distance, horses drawn in the high numbers win at just 6% of the time, compared to low draws, and Cisterna has also never raced on today's slightly soft ground.

Three consecutive fourth-place finishes at Dundalk paint a picture of a horse that keeps running decent races without quite getting over the line. This is a new jockey today with no previous experience of this horse, and the record on ground faster than normal is poor — zero wins from four attempts.