Newmarket Racing Tips: James Boyle's best bets for 1000 Guineas Day

Horse racing tips today:

• 15:00 Newmarket – Berkshire Rocco – 1pt @ 9/1 with William Hill
• 15:40 Newmarket – Elmalka – 1pt e/w @ 25/1 with Bet365

For today's horse racing tips, our analyst James Boyle looks at the flat racing meeting at Newmarket with two selections online.

As always, you’ll find up-to-date odds at the bookmakers, but our tipster’s predictions are researched early in the day and those prices could soon be moved in by the betting public. 

Odds stated are correct at the time of publishing, but check out today's racecards for all the latest movements. 

15:00 Newmarket – Berkshire Rocco – 1pt @ 9/1

Berkshire Rocco isn’t the force of old but he’s handicapped to win a good race before long and with the Balding yard in fine order, I’m happy to take a chance on his seasonal return. He hasn’t won fresh before but has gone well on a few occasions and was being prepped for a run at Musselburgh at the end of March, only for that meeting to be abandoned on the day.

He was supported to win this race last season, going off as the 5/1 favourite on what was his handicap debut, but the ground was testing and he didn’t perform to his best. It took a while longer to find his form but his last two handicap attempts of 2023 were good efforts, including in the Ebor.

Pressing the reset button may do no harm and if they’ve managed to get him in good order at home, I really like the look of this race for him. He should get a solid pace to track and if he’s at the front any time inside the last couple of furlongs, it mightn’t be easy to overtake him.

15:40 Newmarket – Elmalka – 1pt e/w @ 25/1

Elmalka has plenty to find on official ratings but her two runs to date have come at 7f and she has the makings of a fine miler. I backed her to win the Fred Darling at Newbury on her return to action a couple of weeks ago and thought she shaped like she was the best horse in the race.

That experience is likely to kick her onto another level and it developed into a sprint for the line, which she wouldn’t have wanted. She’ll get a thorough test this time, finding some cover shouldn’t be too difficult and she’s unlikely to need to get racing as early as she did last time out.

Whether she’s able to compete with some of these given her lack of experience and proven ability remains to be seen, but she’s a nice prospect with more to offer. If she comes on even half as much as she did from her first run to her second, she’ll be a player. 25/1 looks too big to me.

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