Wednesday’s Horse Racing Tips: Appleby and Buick can continue fine form

The Flat season has kicked into gear at Newmarket this week and I’m ridiculously excited to travel north to the Rowley Mile on Thursday to watch the Craven on course.

However, we have Wednesday’s card to get through first and I will be backing Charlie Appleby and William Buick to continue their fine start to the season in the closing 1m2f handicap (5.20 Newmarket).

The boys in blue will team up on High Honour, a three-year-old son of Frankel who cost 900,000gns as a yearling back in 2021. He didn’t come to hand as early as most of Appleby’s juveniles last year and he looked extremely inexperienced on his debut at Sandown, where he struggled to go the pace before making late inroads. 

That race was won by John and Thady Gosden’s Arrest, who subsequently finished second in the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud, while runner-up Desert Order won the Convivial Maiden at York before plundering an end-of-season Newmarket handicap off a mark of 92. 

High Honour clearly learned a lot from his first to second start as he readily made amends by recording a soft ground victory over a mile at Goodwood. He then had two months off the track before finishing a highly creditable third at Chelmsford - a race that must have been used to get a handicap mark for his three-year-old campaign.

That all-weather race was messy. Front-runner and eventual second Kingsley Pride veered across the whole field with a furlong and a half to go, badly hampering High Honour in the process. Appleby’s runner took a few strides to regain his equilibrium before hitting the line strongly under hands-and-heels riding.

A long break over the winter will have helped this horse mature and I think he’s pretty nicely treated off a mark of 90, especially as he is likely to improve over trips in excess of 1m2f this season. 

His connections began this three-day Newmarket meeting in blistering form, he’s drawn nicely in stall seven given the potential stands’ side bias and I would be surprised if he wasn’t fit off the layoff.

Wednesday’s Horse Racing Tips

High Honour (5.20 Newmarket) @ 4.8