Red-hot Murphy on title charge with seven Newbury chances and big-race Dream

After a frenetic ten weeks of playing catch-up it feels like racing is reverting to some form of normal.

Saturday's meeting at Newbury, led by the Group 2 Unibet Hungerford Stakes, is always scheduled for the middle Saturday in August, with the unique spectacle of Newmarket’s Betway Grey Horse Handicap dovetailing nicely in support.

You would normally anticipate a full programme of Premier League and EFL football on this weekend too, and the fact that lovers of that sport will be denied their fix until next month is perhaps another indicator of just how far racing has come in such a short time since emerging from lockdown on June 1.

It’s a relative calm before the storm ahead of next week’s York Ebor meeting where a galaxy of stars such as Love, Ghaiyyath and Battaash will strut their stuff on the Knavesmire.

Oisin Murphy has a plethora of exciting rides to look forward to at York, including Kameko in Wednesday’s £275,000 Juddmonte International, and it is the likes of Tom Marquand, William Buick and Ben Curtis who will need to play catch-up if they are to halt his seemingly irresistible march towards a second successive jockeys’ title.

Dream Of Dream (yellow cap): finishing second to Hello Youmzain at Royal AscotCredit: Edward Whitaker

The champion has been blazing a hotter trail than temperatures in the south of England over the last week to scorch a long way clear of nearest pursuer Marquand.

Prior to Friday’s meeting at Lingfield, Murphy had won on six of his last nine rides, which included Salisbury and Wolverhampton trebles.

The momentum does not look like slowing as Murphy has seven rides at Newbury, highlighted by the Sir Michael Stoute-trained Dream Of Dreams, favourite for the Hungerford Stakes.

Dream Of Dreams looks a thoroughly worthy market leader on the back of his Royal Ascot second to Hello Youmzain in the Group 1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes over six furlongs, and the step back up to seven should play to his strengths.

Nobody in the sport would begrudge Stoute a fourth Hungerford – he last won it with Chic in 2004 – following the death this week of his long-time partner Coral Pritchard-Gordon.

Murphy and Stoute also have strong claims via the highly progressive Alignak in the Group 3 Irish Thoroughbred Marketing Geoffrey Freer Stakes.

The four-year-old delivered a career-best when a short-head second to Trueshan at Haydock last time, and looks ready for this challenge. Stoute seeks a fifth Geoffrey Freer, having first landed it with Shernazar, partnered by Walter Swinburn, in 1985.

No winner of the Grey Horse handicap, which was first run in 2003 at Newmarket, will ever capture a place in the public’s heart like racing’s most famous grey Desert Orchid did, but Case Key has his own particular fan club.

The Mick Appleby-trained seven-year-old bids to win the race for a third time after victories in 2017 and 2019.

Just like Desert Orchid, he’s renowned for his forceful front-running and made all to beat Chatham House by a length and a quarter 12 months ago.

In terms of novelty value it’s always a good race, and it’s popularity was demonstrated at the beginning of the week when two non-greys featured among the entries.

The sight of a double-figure field of all grey sprinters charging up the July Course provides one of those Laytown beach-type moments which adds to the colour and variety of our great sport.

Case Key: twice a winner of the Grey Horse Handicap

And while he’s only a 72-rated handicapper with no pretensions to climbing much further up the racing ladder, many of us will be roaring home Case Key, the mount of useful apprentice Angus Villiers, in his bid to capture the headlines.

There’s also an international flavour to Saturday’s racing, with Barney Roy's bid for Group 1 glory in Germany's Preis von Europa at Cologne, and Newmarket raider Mishriff set to lock horns once again with the two horses who chased him home in Deauville’s Prix Guillaume D’Ornano.

Mishriff gave John Gosden his first French Derby triumph when staying on strongly to beat The Summit by a length and three-quarters at Chantilly last month, with the warm favourite Victor Ludorum a neck back in third.

Frankie Dettori will travel to Deauville to take the ride aboard Mishriff, meaning he will will have self-isolate for 14 days upon retuning to Britain and miss next week's Ebor meeting at York.

Some will be surprised to see Victor Ludorum as marginal favourite over Mishriff as he was produced with what promised to be a winning from two furlongs out that day, before being readily outpointed in the closing stages.

In addition, his renowned turn of foot could be blunted by thunderstorm-softened ground at Deauville, the track having recently soaked up 34 millimetres of rain.

We’ll see.

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