Best bets for the The Moët & Chandon July Festival – day two Friday

I have had a stinker of a start to July, close but no cigar as the saying goes, but it’s Feel Good Friday at the Moët & Chandon July Festival and hopefully, I have a couple that will have us feeling good later.

The Group Two Duchess Of Cambridge Stakes at 2.25 has some nice young’uns lining up. Main Edition is unbeaten in three starts following her success in the G.3 Albany at Royal Ascot where she just held off the reopposing La Pelosa. I think the Godolphin filly may gain revenge here though as that was a good effort for only her second start and she should be a little wiser and stronger here. I have the 3-1. The lads from Ballydoyle won this last year with Clemmie and their Gossamer Wings is feared off the back of her second in the G.2 Queen Mary at Royal Ascot.

The Group 1 Tattersalls Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket on Friday at 3.35 sees the Jessica Harrington trained filly Alpha Centauri taking on her elders for the first time but sadly the two that have stood their ground have never won a Group One so it’s not perhaps the test it might have been. The Irish 1,000 Guineas winner put in the performance of the week at Ascot winning the Coronation Stakes where she smashed the track record previously set by Barney Roy and is an odds-on favourite to add a third Group One to her tally. She is set to get her preferred fast ground again here and is 4-6, let met etll you, you wouldn’t catch me laying Evens! Jessica Harrington appears more than happy with her charge and has been pleased with what she has seen since Ascot. “She’s drawn one and she is in great form. The usual suspects have all turned up again,” said the trainer earlier this week.

Aidan O’Brien runs Clemmie, who has seen the back end of Alpha Centauri in her two races so far this term and I see no reason for her to reverse the form of either run. Mark Johnston saddles two, Threading who the selection beat by six lengths when she was second to her in the Coronation Stakes and there is no reason to think she can turn that form around and Nyaleti, winner of the G.2 German Guineas, but she is 13lb inferior on OR’s. Altyn Orda looks out of her depth whilst Arabian Hope and Opal Tiara for the older generation and can surely only hope for place money.

Be lucky