Ebor Festival. Day Two – Copybet

Four go to post in the Yorkshire Oaks with Minnie Hauk heading the betting. She’s a deserved favourite, having already won both the English and Irish Oaks, but she’s never produced a truly spectacular performance, and it could pay to take her on.

Her Irish Oaks win was workmanlike at best, coming in what looked a weak renewal, and she only just scraped home in the English Oaks when holding off Whirl. That form reads well on paper, but Whirl shapes more like a mile-and-a-quarter filly.

Estrange really caught the eye with her four-length romp in the Lester Piggott Fillies’ Stakes, a performance full of authority. She followed up in the Lancashire Oaks, though that win was less convincing, similar to Minnie Hauk’s effort at the Curragh. Even so, Estrange has already shown earlier this season that she’s capable of much better.

The current market has the pair some way apart, but Minnie Hauk hasn’t done enough to suggest she is significantly superior to Estrange. Despite having to concede 9lb, Estrange looks the value alternative and could well trouble the favourite.

The Rod Millman-trained Anthelia has already landed a big prize this season, when she reeled in Havana Hurricane late on to win the Super Sprint Stakes. Winners of that contest often head straight into Group company, but she remains eligible here and connections have opted to step her back up in trip.

She finished fifth in a Listed race at Newmarket on her only previous attempt over this distance, beaten just two lengths, and there should be further improvement to come from that effort.

Notably, the last five winners of this race were drawn in stall seven or lower, so her low berth of six looks ideal and could give her every chance of adding another valuable success.

Hey Tru Blue has had four runs this season and got off the mark at the third attempt, winning a maiden at Doncaster in comfortable fashion by two and a quarter lengths as the odds-on favourite.

That performance earned him an opening handicap mark of 86, and he made his first start in that company at Goodwood. Conditions were testing after the huge downpour, with the ground officially heavy, and it was his first time encountering such going.

A fourth-place finish was a respectable effort in the circumstances, and with a return to a sounder surface today, he looks to be massively overlooked at double-figure odds.