Saturday's Horse Racing Tips: James Boyle's Best Bets at Ascot

For today's horse racing tips, our analyst James Boyle looks at the flat racing at Ascot, 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.

13:50 Ascot – Heavenly Heather – 1pt @ 16/1

This is quite open and I don’t think Heavenly Heather is a 16/1 poke to win it.

Granted, she wasn’t at her best when racing against Fluorescence at Ayr a couple of weeks ago but the ground was soft and I reckon that impacted her finishing effort.

She threatened to play a part in the closing stages when driven into contention but her efforts to get into that position left her out of puff for when she needed to be going forward.

Reverting to a quicker surface could see her in a better light and she’s also back to the C&D where she ran so well in Group company at the Royal meeting a few months ago.

It’s always possible that there’s more to the latest performance than the ground, she may simply be out of form following a long year, but all of that feels accounted for in the price.

The best version of the mare is capable of mixing it with all of these.

15:35 Ascot – Mezcala – 1pt @ 5/1

Mezcala needs to be covered up and produced late in order to be at his best, something that couldn’t happen when he lined up over a mile at Doncaster three weeks ago.

They didn’t go that fast, he raced further forward in his group without enough rivals around him to give cover and then got into a share of the lead earlier than ideal.

What he found late on was far from spectacular but I thought it was a run that suggested he’s in good order and if things pan out better for him here, he could take a step forward.

As with Heavenly Heather, he’s returning to the scene of his peak performance having won the Buckingham Palace over C&D and he’s just a few pounds higher in the weights now.

That was a serious performance given the run through he had on the day and I’ll be disappointed if he’s not showing us a lot more than he did at Doncaster.