Horsham Racing Tips for October 18 – The Pendragon to fire in the Horsham Cup

Here are our best bets from the meeting, which also feature in our daily selections.

Little Ally Bama can kick off Horsham Cup Day with a win. The promising three-year-old has had three career starts for one placing, which came at Geelong over 1765m earlier this month. The filly settled back in the field and kept grinding away to finish behind Fringe, producing a performance that was 1.8 lengths slower than the standard benchmark, more than four lengths better than the next-best last-start figure of any runner in this race. She should appreciate stepping up to the 2100m for the first time and looks capable of further improvement with racing experience. Linda Meech takes the ride, and if she can settle within striking distance, Little Ally Bama should be finishing strongly and can wear them down late.

Going with The Pendragon in the Horsham Cup (2100m). The six-year-old was doing his best work late when finishing sixth in the Mildura Cup three starts ago, having been second-up from a lengthy break on that occasion. He has since had another two runs in strong company, finishing seventh behind Run Harry Run in a Benchmark 100 at Rosehill before his latest fourth behind Ten Commandments in the Gold Nugget at Ballarat. The Hayes-trained galloper has had a somewhat stop-start preparation but should be approaching peak fitness after four runs this campaign. He steps beyond 2000m for the first time since arriving from New Zealand a few years ago, and his best form is certainly good enough to give this a shake. Barrier three gives him every opportunity to enjoy an economical run, and he should be in the finish for a long way.