Pivotal may miss out in the presence of Mind
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Your support makes all the difference.You have only to look at the names of Sir Mark Prescott and Jack Berry to realise they cannot have that much in common. Prescott is Newmarket's hereditary baronet, a man whose features can be as well shrouded as the peaks of the Andes as he draws on a substantial cigar. Jack used to work on Leeds market and, in the early days, his idea of a slap-up Christmas lunch was egg and chips at Forton Services on the M6.
Yet there are links. Berry virtually quarried his own yard out of the Lancashire coastside, while Prescott is rather proud of his base, known as Heath House and fashioned Heath Robinson-like with the trainer's individual stamp in every corner. Both are also brothers in adversity as neither have won at racing's highest level despite over 50 years with a licence between them. "Even our greatest enemies could not argue that Jack and myself have waited long enough for a Group One victory, even if they might not think we necessarily deserve it," Prescott said yesterday.
The breakthrough should come this afternoon though when Prescott's Pivotal and Berry's Mind Games are the clear form choices for the Nunthorpe Stakes on the Knavesmire. The pair have met twice this year, more famously when Pivotal passed his northern rival close home in the King's Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot. "This track will suit Jack's horse better as Pivotal needed all of Ascot's stiff five furlongs to overhaul Mind Games in the King's Stand," Prescott said. "But I'm happy with my horse."
The Ascot race was all the more dramatic for the fact that while the protagonists were separated by half a length there was also the width of the course between them. That should not be repeated today. "With only eight runners we should be able to keep closer tabs on Pivotal this time," Berry said. "We beat the others six lengths on the far side at Ascot but Mind Games did not even see Pivotal coming up the stands rail."
Berry talks a good game, but there is little doubt he is genuinely confident on this occasion. "Mind Games is flying and he has never had a preparation like it," he said. "It is the best I've ever had him and he would have won this last year if he had been in similar shape." Jack could be right this time with conditions and course favouring Mind Games (3.10).
Others to consider are Elnadim (next best 2.05), who is not disgraced in his work at Arundel with the 2,000 Guineas proposition Bahhare, Moonshine Girl (2.35) and GOLD SPATS (nap 3.45), who is extraordinarily well handicapped.
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