Racing: Air Express looks winning ticket for QEII

Punters up and down the country will be blindly backing Frankie Dettori to repeat last year's seven-timer at today's Ascot Festival. Greg Wood, who provided punters with a 179-1 double by tipping the winners of the Ayr Gold Cup and Silver Cup last Saturday, says it is not going to happen. With Dettori's mounts likely to start at short prices, he has come up with four better-value alternatives.

There will be but one question on the lips of casual punters this morning - can Frankie do it again? To this, there is a simple response: no, of course he can't, and if you honestly think he might then you are a danger both to yourself and to others. Unfortunately, though, even those who should know better will still be backing the Dettori seven-timer today, which is a perfect example of why, despite the pounds 30m hole in their bank balances after last year's astonishing Ascot Festival, the bookmakers just keep getting richer.

No-one should venture into a betting shop without at least a rudimentary grasp of the laws of probability, but even basic common sense will surely be left at the door this morning. Last year's SP accumulator, remember, paid odds of 25,095-1, and that after panicking off-course bookies sent huge sums back to Ascot to shorten up Dettori's last three winners.

Even so, this implies that if he were to ride at 250 seven-race meetings a year for the next 50 years, he would not expect to repeat his achievement of 12 months ago at even one of them. Rather than dreaming about another Dettori Day, punters should simply pause to appreciate the magnitude of the jockey's performance last year.

Still, there will be an enjoyable attack of nerves behind payout windows everywhere if Dettori wins the first, but with each of the Italian's mounts likely to start at an artificially short price, smart punters will look elsewhere for the value bets which should inevitably result.

This is certainly the case in the feature event, the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, in which Dettori will partner Allied Forces, who is a talented and dependable miler but also thoroughly exposed. Both he and Centre Stalls will be vulnerable to one of the six three-year-olds, an age group which has won nine of the last 12 runnings of the QEII.

Entrepreneur carried hundreds of thousands of punters' pounds to their doom when beaten at odds-on in the Derby, yet he will be well supported today for his first race since. He makes absolutely no appeal at tight odds, while both Revoque, his main market rival, and Bahhare, a fine two-year-old but recently beaten by Revoque at Doncaster in his only race this season, are also very short given their achievements, or lack of them, so far this year.

There is one runner, though, who has top-class form in the book over course and distance, yet will probably start at a double-figure price. AIR EXPRESS (nap 3.20) won the 2,000 Guineas in Germany and Italy earlier this year, but it is his second place behind Starborough in the St James's Palace Stakes at the Royal meeting here which gives him every chance today.

If you accept Clive Brittain's explanation that the course did not suit him when he was well beaten in the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood on his only start since, Air Express is a serious contender, and undoubtedly the value bet of the entire day.

Although another seven-timer is unthinkable, the bookies will still breathe a little easier if King Sound, Dettori's mount in the Cumberland Lodge Stakes which opens the card, comes home a loser. King Sound, who is finally rediscovering his excellent two-year-old form, has a fair chance, but it is one of racing's real characters, Maylane (2.00), who may deny him.

Maylane has improved throughout the campaign, despite a quirky nature which generally sees him give his rivals several lengths' start with a violent swerve as he leaves the stalls. "When he arrived as a yearling from stud," Alec Stewart, his trainer, recalls, "the stud manager sent me a note saying, watch out for this one, he's a bit of a nutcase. But I'm very fond of him, he's a great challenge to train and I like training horses like that."

A gelding operation earlier this year has calmed Maylane down a little, but the racecourse stalls still bring out the worst in him. "We'll put him through the stalls at home," Stewart says, "and he comes out like a sprinter and runs straight as a die. Mentally, he's very immature, like his sire [Mtoto] was as a three-year-old."

Despite his misbehaviour, Maylane has had a very successful season, and while he is not a horse to stake a fortune on, he is improving and should be good enough to win. So too should Averti (2.35), who has not had the best of luck in his last two outings but certainly has the form to win the Diadem Stakes.

The big handicap includes several confirmed front-runners, Chickawicka and Cosmic Prince among them, who should set the race up for Waypoint (next best 3.55). Roger Charlton's filly is well handicapped on her win at Newbury three runs ago, and today's conditions - a strong pace over seven furlongs on fast ground - are made to measure.

Dettori's seven rides

Forecast odds

2.00: King Sound 7-1

2.35: Russian Revival 4-1

3.20: Allied Forces 11-2

3.55: Tumbleweed Ridge 12-1

4.30: Noisette 9-2

5.00: Atuf 5-2

5.35: Jaseur 11-2

Accumulated odds: 422,9221/2-1

(Last year's accumulator, after bookmakers hedged their liabilities by shortening up the odds in later races, paid 25,095-1)