Chelmsford best bet: Curtiz ready to pounce off career-low mark
Chelmsford City Racecourse
With the all-weather tracks living up to their name as the only venues surviving the cold snap, our partners at Tipstrr have dug out a selection from the final race on Chelmsford’s afternoon card.
16:15 Chelmsford: Ministry of Sound 31st August Handicap (1 mile 2 furlongs)
Only three of the 10 starters have enjoyed previous success around the Essex circuit, and that include Cryptos Dream, who heads the betting after winning three times last year and ending 2023 with figures of 1133 from his final four outings.
He will be strongly fancied despite carrying top weight, but he looks likely to be challenged by course-distance winner Mirabello Bay, and is 12 runs without a win, but showed noticeable improvement when blinkered in his last two outings at Lingfield in December.
The only other past winner over this trip is Crazy Maisie, who won here as recently as November, since when she was far from disgraced in two fifth-placed finishes at Lingfield, and she remains a threat at this lower grade.
Despite those credentials, our final nod goes to Hughie Morrison’s seven-year-old Curtiz, whose easing mark appears to put him in with a great chance of rekindling former glories.
Suggested best bet: Curtiz each-way in the 16:15 at Chelmsford
Since scoring a hat-trick on the turf at Ffos Las and Epsom in the space of one month in 2021, Curtiz has struggled under the penalties imposed by the handicapper after that rapid success.
Thirteen winless rides have seen those weights slide down again to a more competitive level, and his last two outings at Lingfield either side of the festive period (second of 12 and third of nine) offered cause for renewed optimism.
He is now 14 pounds below his last winning mark, and in the capable hands of David Probert, this lower-grade handicap could be the ideal stage for Curtiz to reacquaint himself with the winner’s enclosure.
- Tip advised by HorsesTips on Tipstrr
