Perennial market leader Orazio seeks forgiveness in devilishly difficult Ayr Gold Cup puzzle

It is easy to come over all spiritual when studying the field for the Virgin Bet Ayr Gold Cup – and not just because it is so tricky you feel the need for divine intervention to find the winner.

Like a vicar scratching their head over Sunday’s sermon, a punter will be wondering whether the key theme should be forgiving past sins, welcoming back a prodigal son or two, or venerating a living saint.

The sinner in this regard is Orazio, who has transgressed cardinally in the eyes of many backers as a beaten favourite for two of the biggest betting races of the season.

He was sent off as short as 7-2 in a field of 27 for the Wokingham at Royal Ascot and could finish only sixth. Yet that did not cause any loss of faith. Quite the reverse. He started an even warmer favourite at 100-30 in a similarly big and competitive field for the Stewards’ Cup at Goodwood. And finished 18th.

Of course, it is easy to pardon a previously progressive sprinter who was having just the seventh run of his life when beaten two and a half lengths by battle-hardened handicappers at Ascot then failed to cope with extreme conditions at Goodwood, and he topped the ante-post market. But any horse who is beaten favourite for the Wokingham, Stewards’ Cup and Ayr Gold Cup is liable to find themselves made patron saint of bookmakers.

Summerghand will certainly be welcomed back to a course where he brought such joy to the congregation 12 months ago. There were hymns of praise after his win under Danny Tudhope, whose friends and family were in the pews to see the man born ten miles away in Irivine become the first Scottish jockey to win his country’s biggest Flat race for 50 years.

It is 92 years since any horse won this contest twice in a row and some of Summerghand’s efforts since could be described as prodigal. However, he has found his form of late and the way he ran on for fourth from an unfavourable position at the Curragh makes backing him no act of blind faith.

Bielsa went ten races without a win after scooting up the stands’ rail to score here two years ago, when the manager he is named after was going strong at then Premier League Leeds United.

While his namesake has since had mixed fortunes in his new job at Uruguay, the horse himself appears to have ditched that prodigality, winning well at York and finishing third in the Stewards’ Cup, and has the opposite rail to race against this time.

Bielsa (Kevin Stott) had a solo spin up the stands' rail when winning the Ayr Gold Cup in 2021Credit: John Grossick

If successful, he would evoke thoughts of another fondly remembered football character, as the last horse to win, lose and regain the Ayr Gold Cup was Funfair Wane, who was owned and bred by Kevin Keegan and his wife.

Popular though the Liverpool and Newcastle legend was in his prime, he was never as widely loved as Jack Berry is. Nobody could be.

The latest outpouring of emotion for the man, who was in at the birth of the Injured Jockeys Fund nearly 60 years ago and has worked tirelessly for it ever since, came in the universal tributes after last weekend’s Leger Legends race at Doncaster.

Simply put, if the BHA were granted powers of canonisation, they would be odds-on to choose Saint Jack as the first to be honoured. And he would be virtually certain to choose the date of the Ayr Gold Cup as his feast day.

Berry loved the race as a trainer, getting a huge thrill when he won it with So Careful in 1988. It was also the first race he mentioned when Aleezdancer carried his colours to victory at Doncaster in April.

That horse and Bielsa are trained by a similar enthusiast for Ayr in Kevin Ryan, who also runs 2020 Silver Cup winner Magical Spirit in a contest he has taken five times since 2007.

That sounds impressive until you read that Tom Dawson, the pioneer who first worked out that horses were happier if you didn’t work them under heavy sweat-inducing rugs, landed 15 Gold Cups between 1835 and 1869.

By contrast, Owen Burrows has just his second course runner when Raqiya goes for a hat-trick in the Virgin Bet Best Odds Daily Firth of Clyde Stakes, Scotland’s only Group race.

He will already be thinking of the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe a week Sunday and Hukum, the King George winner, who will benefit from every drop of rain that falls in Paris. If ever there was a reason to get a prayer mat out, that is it.

Read more on the Ayr Gold Cup:

2023 Ayr Gold Cup: the runners, the odds, the verdict

Keith Melrose on why Kevin Ryan's Ayr Gold Cup record could be set to get even better

'There's a forgotten horse this year' - why this horse can win the 2023 Ayr Gold Cup on Saturday plus 1-2-3 predictions