Ballarat Racing Tips for July 3 – Cologne to spray his rivals in Race 4

Here are our best bets from the meeting, which is one of two on the day in Victoria, coinciding with the meeting at Moe.

Heat Map can go close in the opener. The Jason Warren filly has had the three career starts and found a Group 3 race in Adelaide a bit too tough but was solid last time at Bendigo when working home with the fastest last 200m over the 1000m to place 4th behind Angels Fury. She takes on the older horses but there are a few plodders here and the daughter of Extreme Warrior comes in with the best last start benchmark figures of any runner in the field. She should be hard to hold out at the business end. 

Hoping Eau De Cologne can sneak into the field in Race 4. The locally trained galloper is one of the emergencies and comes off a dominant win when racing on the Synthetic for the first time, scoring by five lengths in BenchMark 56 company over the 1500m ahead of She’s A Con. The four-year-old was posted wide no cover but was far too good, running slick time for this company, going 0.7 lenghts slower than standard, which is more than three lengths better than the next best figures of any runner. He draws ideally in barrier 3 and no reason to suggest why he cant go on with the job. 

Lucky Compass is a sneaky player in Race 5. The six-year-old resumes from a short spell and finished in then top four in five runs before the break, placing in two of those. He has some respectable form on Synthetic tracks and comes off a winning trial at Geelong, while he should have plenty of residual fitness in the tank after his marathon preparation last time. The son of Nicconi might lead them along in a race that lacks pressure and will be in it for a long way.