Talking Horses: Best Monday bets for Kempton and Warwick


Ballymountain Boy (4.05), fourth over course and distance in a race that has subsequently proved to be a useful form pointer, is the best bet of the day at Kempton

The bookmakers hadn’t quite the nerve to price up Utility as the overnight favourite for Kempton’s getting-out-stakes on Monday afternoon but they couldn’t help themselves making this six-year-old, a son of Yeats, the second favourite in most lists.

Jonjo O’Neill’s runner is exasperating yet fascinating. WB Yeats wrote his own epitaph: “Cast a cold eye/on life, on death/Horseman, pass by”. What exactly the great man meant by that is subject to debate, but perhaps the last bit could be interpreted as advice regarding Utility.

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