Champagne Stakes - St Ledger Day 2010

2.10 Doncaster
Neptune Investment Management Champagne Stakes (Group 2) (Class 1) (2YO only)
Winner £67,386

Pick: Waiter’s Dream (win)

Approve: Showed promise early on and has run to a high level since, winning the Norfolk Stakes, coming fourth in the July Stakes and third in Prix Robert Papin (unlucky to lose); Once again has penalty but sets a decent standard and will be right there.

Castlemorris King: Well beaten at 100/1 in a Newmarket maiden last month and looks hopelessly out of his depth here.

Karam Albaari: Ran in snatches but still managed to overcome that when making good start in AW 6f AW maiden at Kempton earlier this month, making rapid headway to lead close home; Sure to improve but this is a much tougher race.

Saamidd: Supplemented for this off the back of extremely impressive performance in Newbury maiden, shooting clear up the centre of the Newbury straight and earning quotes of 20/1 for the guineas in the process; Obvious contender here although he’s been handed a tough task today.

Waiter’s Dream: Improving with each runs, confirming promise shown when sixth at Newbury and seventh at Salisbury when making easy work of things at Newbury, making all and having the race in the bag from long way out; Took another step forward when slamming rivals in Acomb Stakes at York, and if coming forward again, has to have serious shot at this and possibly even bigger targets.

Waltz Waltz: Won a weak maiden at Ripon first time out but followed up in good style next time, achieving lot more when beating 3 previous winners (giving weight away to second ) at Newcastle on second start; Well beaten in Vintage and Solario Stakes so fair to say this could be too tough.

VERDICT: A small but classy field, with 2 previous group winners coming up against a 7 length maiden winner from the yard that won this last year. Approve sets a very high standard to shoot at and would be dangerous to considerer overly exposed, but a big field has been present for his 2 Group 2 wins, with rather disappointing runs in small fields in-between. Saamidd is undoubtedly a horse of enormous potential and is very popular after his impressive display at Newbury, but WAITER’S DREAM gets better with every single run and was being talked of as a serious horse after his Acomb Stakes win. He should go close here.