Thursday's Horse Racing Tips: James Boyle's Best Bets At Ripon & Sandown

For today's horse racing tips, our analyst James Boyle looks at the flat racing at Ripon and Sandown, with two selections now online.

As always, you’ll find the most up-to-date odds at the best horse racing betting sites, but our tipster’s predictions are researched early in the day and those prices could soon change. Odds stated are correct at the time of publishing.

16:10 Ripon – Solar Biricz – 0.50pts @ 28/1

This could be a total waste of time if the Solar Biricz who showed up at Thirsk a couple of weeks ago is the one that we see today, but he also ran terribly at that track in April.

Sandwiched between those runs was a fast-finishing fourth over the minimum trip at Redcar, a day when I backed him, and he wouldn’t be without a chance if returning to that level.

It’s hard to know whether he wants to go a sixth furlong, although he was beaten long before the distance could have come into play last time and a few hints in his races suggest he can stay.

All headgear is now removed following two attempts in a visor and his win for Brian Ellison last season came with nothing in use following a couple of spins in cheekpieces. 

If he is to get competitive, he’ll have to overturn a 5lb well-in odds-on favourite but that rival looks very short to me and, whatever happens with Solar Biricz, I want to try get him beaten.

17:10 Sandown – Kolkata Knight – 1.50pts @ 7/1

I think Kolkata Knight has enough about him to be a major player in this and the early betting is disagreeing, as he has eased out to a general 7/1. That seems overly generous to me.

Granted, he was a no-show at Chester last time out but he was drawn in 11 once non-runners are taken into account and whatever chance he had of involvement relied on a rapid break.

That didn’t happen, plus the usual charge for position meant there was no hanging around, and he ended up stuck on the wing. The only benefit from the run was topping up his fitness.

I liked his effort before that when returning from six-months off the track to finish a neck behind Simplify around Wolverhampton. The early stages of that went more to plan and he finished off nicely on a track that I suspect is on the sharp side for him.

Sandown’s test promises to suit, he shouldn’t have any problems when it comes to track position and will get a nice lead from one or two others, unless they revert to making the running.

It’s a good race with some interesting contenders, not least Major Neigh Sayer dropping to 5f from a mile, but there’s juice in the Kolkata Knight price and he shouldn’t be far away.