Monday Wolverhampton top racing tip: Bungle Bay can upset market leaders

From a busy Monday race card, Tipstrr horse racing pundit Steve Jones has pinpointed Bungle Bay as a decent prospect at this evening's meeting at Wolverhampton's all-weather track.

The early favourite is Split Elevens, but his need to be delivered right one the line makes him so hard to win with, that his price surely creates value elsewhere.

His winning margins have been a neck (twice), a short-head and a nose, but he is winless in five efforts over this course and distance, and three of those defeats came off a lower mark than he carries here.

Also well-supported, Port Noir looks sure to be popular, given that her last two wins came over this very trip in higher-graded Class 5 handicaps, the latest of them off a mark that was four pounds higher than here.

Her last win was back in September 2021, but she has finished runner-up in two of her last four starts and she looks ready to strike again soon.

One of those near-misses came when she was beaten half a length by Bungle Bay in a handicap over the shorter 6.1 furlongs at this venue earlier this month.

The pair of them will both probably improve again here for the extra furlong, and it was only in April last year that Port Noir finished runner-up in a Class 5 fillies' handicap when racing off 68, so she has to be of interest off 60 down in Class 6.

However, Bungle Bay looks a good-value bet to beat Port Noir here for a second time this month, as jockey claims means they are separated only by the same two pounds as that clash four weeks ago.

Despite that success, Bungle Bay is a larger price than Port Noir, and indeed James Evans's horse deserves extra credit for coming out of a very wide stall 10 that day, breaking quickly to race prominently, and always looking likely to win after hitting the front a furlong out.

It was a well-deserved success for Bungle Bay who, just two weeks earlier, had come second by just a neck to Peachey Carnehan, who himself finished ahead of both Split Elevens and Madrinho, both of whom are in opposition here, at this venue just last weekend.

In any case, Bungle Bay looks set to improve again for the extra furlong because he has shown in the past that he has the stamina to stay a mile, most notably when finishing a never-nearer fourth of ten in a much stronger handicap at Lingfield last summer.

Bungle Bay's most recent run was in an amateurs' handicap at Kempton two weeks ago, and can probably be easily ignored because he stumbled coming out of the stalls and his rider lost her irons.

He is reunited with his winning rider back Mollie Phillips, who is fresh from landing a 10/1 winner with her only at this venue on Friday.

With a familiar jockey in the saddle, and proven over further than this, as well as showing the speed to win here over six furlongs earlier this month, Bungle Bay looks a good bet off a mark that is still nine pounds lower than at this time last year.