Kranji meeting top picks
Both top-form last-start winners are the top bets for Friday and Sunday respectively
The way they performed at the trials, Ararat Lady and Raheeb will take some beating at Kranji tonight and on Sunday respectively.
By the way, both are impressive last-start winners, so winning form is good form.
The Cliff Brown-trained Ararat Lady has had only two starts and the filly impressed in both. She probably could have won her debut if not being hampered during that Polytrack 1,100m race in Restricted Maiden (RM) on Oct 7 last year.
The bay New Zealand-bred made amends next start on Nov 11 when she came with a withering run from worse than midfield to beat another RM field over 1,200m on turf.
Her winning time, 1min 10.36sec, was noteworthy.
Brown has managed to keep Ararat Lady in pink condition for her first campaign this year. If you have seen the way she won her trial on Jan 15, you would have been mesmerised.
Carrying a hefty 69kg, she beat Twickenham, who captured the Group 3 Committee's Prize over 1,600m in 2016 and 2017. Ararat Lady is competing in only Class 4 Div 2 in tonight's Race 5 over the Poly 1,100m. Based on that, it would take a good horse to beat her.
The Michael Clements-trained Raheeb has an almost identical form as Ararat Lady, just that the Kiwi-bred gelding was unplaced in his debut. But that was in a Group 2 affair, won by top juvenile Be Bee.
After that run, Raheeb ran second to the promising Nowyousee in RM over the Poly 1,000m before being third-time lucky in RM over 1,200m in a smart 1min 10.72sec on a yielding track. All his outings were in 2017, the last being on Nov 24 that year.
Whatever problems he has seems to have been fixed, as the horse has been catching the eye with his rousing gallops in his morning hit-outs and trials.
Clements has put the four-year-old chestnut through two trials for his comeback and he finished creditably well in both. It was evident he was not out to break any records but still ran on nicely to finish second in both.
Freshness will be key to his comeback in Sunday's Race 8, a Class 4 Div 2 event over 1,200m.
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