5:15 – Southwell – FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @SOUTHWELL_RACES HANDICAP (CLASS 6) (4yo+ 0-65) Standard 1m6f
With the wet weather continuing to dominate the turf the ‘standard’ surface at Southwell gives us some respite and some reliable form to look at. The Nicky Vaughan trained Omid runs at the track again today having won last week by fully 9 lengths and looks difficult to oppose with just a 6lb penalty.
Omid has had an interesting career to date. The 4 year old bay gelding did not run at all as a 2 year old and only made one start last year which is not surprising as although he is by Dubawi he made his racecourse debut in a National Hunt Flat race at Doncaster in November 2011. He was bought by Nigel Tinkler at the DBS Hennessy sales at Newbury last November for £30,000 and has previously changed hands £55,000 when he was bought by Darley who he never raced for.
Omid was clearly well thought of by his various connections but showed precious little on his first four runs for his new connections. All of his first four starts were on turf running three times over 1 mile 4 furlongs and once over 2 miles. His best finishing position was 5th and he was beaten a combined 126 lengths in total.
His last run was on the fibresand at Southwell when he was fitted with a visor for the first time. A combination of the head gear and the fibresand surface appear to have worked well as after tracking the leaders he made headway 4 furlongs out and was ridden to chase the leaders from 3 furlongs out. He led well over a furlong out and stayed on strongly going away to win by 9 lengths on his fibresand debut.
He runs over the same distance of 1 mile 6 furlongs again today and given his winning margin he should be hard to beat against ordinary opposition today. His trainer, Nicky Vaughan said after his win last week: ”The surface helped Omid as the ground in the spring was too firm. He´s bone idle and it´s taken a long time for the penny to drop but the fast pace helped and we´ll bring him back out next Monday if he comes out of this race well.”
