Thursday’s Newmarket July Festival Tips: Unexposed three-year-olds kick off Tom Collins’ bets

For those who aren’t interested in Saratoga, attention will turn to Newmarket over the next three days as the July festival takes centre stage on the Suffolk turf.

Seven Group races, which includes the Falmouth Stakes and July Cup, as well as copious competitive handicaps should be enough to rope in even the most reluctant of punters. The ground is listed as good to firm at the time of writing despite heavy watering - a decision that could backfire later in the week if the forecast rain arrives.

Those of you looking for generic pointers shouldn’t veer far from the obvious. Stick to those drawn in low-to-middle stalls as racing further towards the far side can diminish even the greatest horse’s chance of winning. While trainer Charlie Appleby and jockey William Buick, who clearly top the course statistics over the last five years, have a selection of live chances once again.

Perhaps their best opportunity of a winner on day one is 8/15 shot Adayar, who will take all the beating in the Group 2 Princess Of Wales’s Stakes (3.35) if official ratings are anything to go by. But I’m more interested in backing Appleby’s unbeaten three-year-old Imperial Emperor, who is around 13/8 to continue his winning sequence in the Listed Sir Henry Cecil Stakes (4.45) later on the card.

This homebred colt has an exceptional pedigree - he’s by Dubawi out of Group 1-winning mare Zhukova, which makes him a full-brother to the 106-rated First Ruler and a relative of the 130-rated Ghaiyyath. He’s already living up to the hype on the track with two impressive displays and connections are keeping him at a mile despite strongly indicating they believe his best efforts will come over further.

I have no issue with the mile for Imperial Emperor at this point in his career. He showcased a nice turn of foot to win on debut on the Rowley Mile in a race that Godolphin tend to target a good juvenile at, before quickening impressively to follow up on this track 19 days ago. They like to go forward with him and that’s normally a positive at this venue.

There is no question that this is his toughest assignment to date and the likes of Nostrum, Mostabshir and New Endeavour are certainly not pushovers. In fact, the former sets the bar on his two-year-old rating. However, he has questions to answer off a long absence and I’d rather take the ‘here and now’ horse in this encounter.

Despite going against Ryan Moore’s ride in the Sir Henry Cecil Stakes, I will be backing the best jockey in the world in Thursday’s finale (5.20). Moore will partner the Charlie Hills-trained Bodorgan, who broke his maiden on the Rowley Mile course in October but is winless in two starts this term.

This colt shaped as if he would develop into a nice three-year-old and I was encouraged by his reappearance run at Haydock, where he was poorly positioned before making a nice move to challenge the leaders wide on the track. His effort petered out late on, but that was to be expected given his lack of a recent outing and the unsustainable early move.

Bodorgan wasn’t as good last time, but I don’t think he handled the track overly well and I’m willing to put a line through the effort. His new mark of 86 is undoubtedly workable and he’s got to be a huge player with his 9lb weight-for-age allowance.

Thursday’s Newmarket July Festival Tips

Imperial Emperor (4.45 Newmarket) @ 2.62
Bodorgan (5.20 Newmarket) @ 7.4