This horse cost 280,000 Euros
and is a colt by Danehill Dancer out of Wadud a mare by Nashwan. Now I appreciate that may not mean much to most traders and neither should it but I was quite surprised to see a horse of this expected quality appearing in a maiden at Wolverhampton on a Monday afternoon 
You will probably appreciate that horses are generally bred to excel at certain distances and if you follow the pedigree back through the generations most horses comes from a handful of sires. That is why the big players like Sheikh Mohammed, The Aga Khan, John Magnier etc snap up the expensive yearlings at the sales and always seem to be in contention for the top flat races.
Dancing Dude has a pedigree that suggests 8f is about as far as you would want to be running him. In fact as a young horse you generally expect them to be running at sprint distances like 5f-6f. His sire was a good 2yo and sprinter and his progeny usually excel at distances between 5f and 9f and their winning performance tails off markedly at anything above 9f. It seems strange then to see this horse making his debut at 12f on Dunstall Beach
Now before we all start clicking the lay button, let's think a bit more about the race. The trainer Mark Johnston is shrewd and it could be this horse is showing something in his home work that suggest a middle distance will suit him. It could be that his dam Wadud is having an influence on him because she was by Nashwan who won the 2000 Guineas and Derby in 1989. If you look at Wadud's history she didn't exactly set the world alight!
This makes for an interesting race because Dancing Dude gets a big weight allowance as a 3yo and this could be the difference between being competitive or not. Purely on breeding you would not give this horse a chance but as I say Mark Johnston is shrewd and he's known for his middle distance horses rather than sprinters. If it wasn't for the weight allowance I would be reaching for the lay button as 2,60 is too low for a maiden whose pedigree would suggest he will not get this trip in a true run race. In some of these races they just crawl for 1m2f and sprint for the last 2f and that would allow Dancing Dude his best chance.
Personally I feel Wrongwayround and Shut the Bar should be closer in price to the favourite and at 55 on Betfair Street Runner is overpriced for a horse whose pedigree suggests this trip will suit. The bookies generally offer low prices on these horse for a couple of reasons.
1. They are scared this could be a good thing so caution is the best way. If it does win then keeping liabilities down is the order of the day
2. The price is low because they know punters will pile into the expensive "good thing" so why bother offering better odds? They know that long term they will come out ahead on this type of horse. This also applies to layers on Betfair.
As I say, the main factor will be pace. To get a correct result we need a true run race so I hope the top horse El Passos does as he did in his bumper runs and goes to the front. I am not sure why connections ran him in 2m bumpers in the NH sphere when this distance looks more likely to suit him.
It's a race where I will be very interested to see where the favourite finishes and how he runs. I may be looking to ay him pre-race because if other form students out there spot the breeding they may push the price out. I won't lay him for the sake of it but it he gets to 2.50 I will be keen to oppose him.............now watch his hose up by 6 lengths unchallenged
EDIT. I just noticed the money for Mongoose Alert. That horse looks a real stayer and I wonder if he will find things happening all too quickly for him?
