Ian Williams looks to hold all the aces in the Midnite All-Weather Easter Plate Marathon Handicap at Newcastle on Good Friday, as Cesarewitch hero Beylerbeyi bids to go one better than his recent near-misses at Kempton and Lingfield and is joined in the contest by stable stalwart Enemy.
The latter was a good winner on Lingfield’s All-Weather Trials day card and Williams said of the pair: “Beylerbeyi is in great order. His performances over inadequate trips this season have been encouraging, while he showed he handles the track fine at the trials meeting in January.
“I am really looking forward to stepping him back up to his preferred distance. Enemy has won a couple this winter and is still performing at a very good level. He should run another solid race.”
Also double-handed is Charlie Johnston, who will saddle both Southwell scorer Artisan Dancer and Sax Appeal.
Johnston said: “I’ve been looking at it through the week and I felt Artisan Dancer was maybe being a bit underestimated. He had a really good campaign last year, largely in defeat, which was a bit frustrating at times – he was bridesmaid more often than the bride – but he held his form really well and had a good season.
“This has been the target for a while, he had a little break through January and February and came back from that looking in really good form when winning comfortably at Southwell.
“It’s obviously a step up in class from last time, but he was competitive in these sort of races on a few occasions last year, so it would be no surprise to see him run well.”
He went on: “With Sax Appeal I thought the handicapper got a bit carried away for him winning a pretty weak event at Christmas. He’s generally fairly dangerous when rated in the mid-80s, but he can struggle a little bit north of 90.
“He has come back down to a more realistic mark, but we still felt we needed something else so the blinkers have gone back on as when we put them on for the first time last February he won three on the bounce pretty quickly. We’re hopeful they can revitalise him a little bit as well.”
