Racing: Terimon to taunt International field

Greg Wood
Saturday 15 August 1992 23:02 BST
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THE next time one of the grumpy, bowler-hatted apparatchiks at Ascot prods you in the chest and barks 'you can't go in there, you're too working class', react as follows. Put your thumbs in your ears, wiggle your fingers, stick out your tongue and say: 'York's Ebor meeting is better than Royal Ascot.' He still will not let you by, but it should make you feel a lot better, writes Greg Wood.

Ascot tends to offer horses with great early-season promise, but York gives you the finished product. Consider Tuesday's International Stakes, in which three Group One winners - Dr Devious, Kooyonga and Terimon - take on some quality animals. The former pair will dominate the market, but Terimon seems strangely neglected, a 33-1 chance with Coral.

The concept of handedness is well established in humans, but similar considerations in horses are often overlooked. Terimon (3.10) runs half a stone better on a left-handed track, won the International last year, and rates a strong each-way bet. Bonny Scot (3.45) should take the Great Voltigeur Stakes, while John Gosden's Daru (2.35) is a sound bet for the Melrose Handicap.

Another of Gosden's charges, Turgenev, seems sure to be balloted out of the Ebor. Folia (3.10) is more likely to get a run, and is the bet if she can sneak in at the bottom of the weights. Otherwise, Steerforth looks the wisest choice. User Friendly's unbeaten run should survive the challenge of Arrikala in the Yorkshire Oaks (2.35), and Splendent (3.45), who ran green in Ireland last time, is worth another chance in the Gimcrack Stakes.

So long as her exertions to date have not jaded her, Lyric Fantasy is impossible to oppose in Thursday's Nunthorpe Stakes. Magnified, in the Bradford & Bingley Handicap, can ease the pain if the mortgage rate goes up.

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