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The Best From The West - 20th of December, 2025
Best Bets for Ted Van Heemst Stakes Day.
The Pinnacles may have come to an end, though high quality racing continues at Ascot this Saturday with the Ted Van Heemst Stakes the feature event on a competitive card.
The Van Heemst is the final lead-up to the Perth Cup run on New Year's Day, and the Cup looks anyone's race following an upset A.T.A. Stakes on Wednesday.
The top five in the market all come through the Northerly Stakes - of course the premier formline for this - with Apulia the early favourite.
It's little wonder how the bookies came to that decision, with this shaping as a much better task for him from an inside barrier and with William Pike taking the ride today.
Diamond Scene jumped a $4 chance in the Perth Cup earlier this year and finished ahead of Apulia in the Northerly after sitting close to the speed throughout. It's likely that he'll be behind the Lindsay Park galloper this time around, though futures betting for the Cup has them both at level pegging.
In Good Order won this race last year off the Towton Cup and comes into this off a similar ratings platform through the Northerly.
Suspect whoever wins the Van Heemst on Saturday will find themselves favourite - or at least at the pointy end of the market - in the Perth Cup.
One of the better bets on the card comes up in race five in the form of SUPERNATURAL for Pike and Adam Durrant.
The mare comes into this race first-up but hit the line sweetly in her recent trial under Pike in readiness for this and is a two-time winner from three first-up attempts.
Drawing out is a big tick for her as she'll be able to get out wide and out of trouble in what seemingly sets up for a traditional Wizard spectacle from the back of the pack.
Jaz Session is better than she showed last start, winning in this grade two back over the 1000m. She's never missed the placings at 1200m and was only 1.3L off Smooth Chino at her last start over this track and trip in November.
She's the main danger in the market, and on RAS Ratings, though the map does looks very sticky for her.
Happy to side with Supernatural on resumption and suspect she'll be well fancied late in betting.
In the following race, I'm heading back to the well with SUMMER'S LEGACY who was given, we'll say a patient ride, over 2200m a fortnight ago.
Team Williams had mentioned in their runner preview on social media that she was being targeted towards this very race as she's owned by the Van Heemst's.
She showed that the trip wasn't an issue for her last start and she was likely to be ridden cold anyway, so the wide draw isn't that much of an issue.
Expecting Pike to be much more proactive than he was a fortnight ago and she can bounce back to winning ways.
THE BEST FROM THE WEST
Race 5 #2 SUPERNATURAL
Race 6 #7 SUMMER'S LEGACY
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