Bookies Fear Yet Another Gamble In The Northumberland Plate

Speedo Boy is the latest horse to be backed heavily in the Northumberland Plate market, as he has gone from a general 16/1 to land the 1 mile 6 furlong contest to now as short as 11/1.

The Ian Williams-trained five-year-old has been frequently used over both the flat and the jumps being very progressive in both styles of racing and having some decent wins to his name during his career.

Over the jumps, he has been a winner at Cheltenham whilst also placing in some other nice events, but over the flat he has seen the best of his runs, being a winner at Ascot back in 2018 beating some smart, progressive horses.

His boss, who has really established himself as a dual purpose trainer, getting winners at the Cheltenham Festival whilst also picking up his first Royal Ascot winner just last week with 33/1 The Grand Visir in the Ascot Stakes.

Williams will be looking to head into the Northumberland plate with three runners with Shabeeb and Time to Study more than likely to run alongside Speedo Boy.

Based in the West Midlands, he will be looking to secure his first win in the race and punters seem to think that Speedo Boy has a very decent chance with some notable market support ahead of the all-weather feature.

The gelding ran a big race in his prep run for the feature a Newcastle finishing a good second behind Red Galileo owned by Godolphin at Newmarket over the same trip as the marathon race on Saturday.

(Credit: Racing Post) He will be looking to reverse the form at the weekend but Williams is looking forward to the contest and said: "Speedo Boy seems in fine form and his latest run behind Red Galileo was a very solid run.

"He's performed well on the synthetic surfaces before and we hope he can run well."

Williams other runner Time To Study who is a general 16/1 chance for the contest finished third just eleven days ago at Royal Ascot in the Ascot Stakes behind his stablemate but is said to be right on track coming out of the race nicely.

Last year he finished sixth in this contest and his trainer added: "I would have liked another week to ten days with Time To Study, who didn't stay the two and a half miles on testing ground at Ascot.

"He seems well in himself, so we'll give it a go, and he's racing off a 10lb lower mark than when he ran in the race a year ago."

On Shabeeb, Williams said: "He hated the soft ground when he ran at Chester last time and hopefully this surface should suit him a bit better."