2023 St Simon Stakes Tips

Hamish has been racking up the victories and the horse definitely looks like the one to beat here. In early August, the seven-year-old was able to oblige in the l'Ormarins King's Plate Glorious Stakes where a four length victory was achieved for the odds-on favourite. This came after a July success at York where the 4/9 favourite won the John Smith’s Silver Cup Stakes.

Al Qareem was successful at Chester and Ascot in September and October respectively, with the former seeing the K R Burke-trained runner claim a victory by a neck before another slender victory in the Cumberland Lodge Stakes. That latter win was on good ground and it will be interesting to see if the horse copes with more testing conditions.

White Birch has failed to win any of his previous four races and the latest performance came at Leopardstown where the horse was fourth in the Paddy Power Stakes at Leopardstown. There wasn’t an awful lot between the front four home on that occasion, with the horse’s best form being a third placed finish in the 2022 Derby.

Chesspiece has the sort of credentials to run a big race and the latest effort saw the runner finish second in a listed race at Ascot, with the horse previously finishing sixth out of nine runners in the St Leger. There was also a runner-up performance in the Gordon Stakes at Goodwood, with King Of Conquest another viable each-way selection.

The legendary Henry Cecil has been able to score on four separate occasions. Main Reef was the winner in 1979 and it was Upend that saw the same trainer in the winners’ enclosure in 1988 before Wellbeing was on target in 2000. High Pitched was victorious a year later to score the 2001 St Simon Stakes.

As far as horse racing betting trends go, there have been a mixture of different-aged winners for this Newbury Racecourse encounter. Max Vega was the 2022 winner as a five-year-old and he followed in the footsteps of the four-year-old victor Ilaraab. The latter was trained by William Haggas and the former obliged courtesy of Ralph Beckett.

Not many seven-year-olds have been winners when it has come to the recent running of the St Simon Stakes, although Euchen Glen was able to score in the 2020 renewal at that particular age.

It is worth considering an each-way bet on this horse race, with a seven pound penalty in place for any Group 1 winner, with five pounds penalty for Group 2 winners and three pounds for any horse that has won a Group 3 encounter.