Valiancy The Standout In Cluttered Copper Horse
Form, youth, and a top handler make this four-year-old the one to beat at 18:10
The Copper Horse Handicap at Ascot on a summer Tuesday evening is exactly the kind of race that punters glance at and think 'nineteen runners, all roughly rated, too hard.' I understand that instinct. But walk through this field properly and one horse separates herself from a genuinely modest group. Valiancy, trained by William Haggas and ridden by James Doyle, arrives on the back of a 1321-1 form line — wins, a couple of close seconds, another win — at a four-year-old age profile that says she is still building. Her SR of 90 is the joint highest in the field alongside Gamrai, but she carries 9-10 compared to the topweights lugging 9-12, and on Good to Firm ground over this mile-and-six, her profile fits the race perfectly.
Gamrai, trained by John and Thady Gosden with Oisin Murphy aboard, is her most obvious danger — SR 90, decent form — but that 124-12 string is bumpier than Valiancy's, and Gamrai's last run was a second rather than a first. Daiquiri Bay ran a nice 4353-1 most recently for Alan King but faces a step up in class and quality here. Sing Us A Song under James McDonald is interesting at 9-9, but the 971-32 tells a story of a horse that finds a way to get beaten when it matters. Give me the Haggas-Doyle combination on a horse going the right direction. Valiancy wins this.
The Shape of the Race
In a field of nineteen over a mile and six furlongs, expect a genuine early gallop with several hold-up horses crowding the rear. Ascending and Paddy The Squire, both carrying 9-12, have the profiles of horses that press forward and try to dictate — their trainers favour that style. Enemy, despite the modest SR of 85, has run prominently before and Cieren Fallon will look to get a good position from stall nine. That genuine pace is precisely what suits Valiancy: Doyle will sit her in mid-division, let the leaders set an honest tempo, and arrive with a sustained run from the two-furlong pole. A truly run mile-and-six on Good to Firm is her optimum setup.
The Storylines
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Haggas yard in serious form William Haggas has been among the division leaders all spring and Valiancy is his type of lightly-weighted, progressive four-year-old carried forward on a winning run.
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Doyle booking seals it James McDonald rides Sing Us A Song, but James Doyle choosing Valiancy over other options in a nineteen-runner handicap is a deliberate and significant booking.
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Youth versus age in a tired-looking field Six of the nineteen runners are aged seven or older; Valiancy at four, still lightly raced, has the scope to rate past them all on Good to Firm ground.
How it Finishes
LLaMa’s predicted 1-2-3-4 — with the actual result tagged on.
Valiancy
SR 90, best form in the race on a 1321-1 string, 9-10 weight is workable, Haggas-Doyle axis, and a pace scenario that sets up her finishing kick perfectly.
Gamrai
Joint-top SR of 90 with Oisin Murphy aboard and a recent second suggests a horse close to peak fitness; Gosden horses rarely run badly at Ascot in midsummer.
Sing Us A Song
James McDonald takes the ride and the 971-32 shows a horse that competes at this level; 9-9 is a fair weight and Ralph Beckett's four-year-olds often run well fresh.
Daiquiri Bay
Rossa Ryan on a horse that last won at 4353-1 suggests confidence; Alan King targeting this race specifically, though a class rise makes the frame rather than the win more likely.
The bet is Valiancy to win, and I want 20 units on her at whatever price the books open at. With no advance market available, I am working on the expectation she goes off somewhere between 4/1 and 7/1 in a wide-open nineteen-runner field where form clarity is scarce. That price range represents genuine value: SR 90, the strongest recent form sequence in the race, a yard that knows how to place a four-year-old, and a jockey who doesn't take handicap bookings at Ascot on Royal Meeting week lightly. Conviction band: medium. Gamrai is a real rival and I won't pretend otherwise — but Valiancy is ahead of her on the evidence.