Timeform UK SmartPlays: Wednesday May 14

Our first SmartPlay is in action at York.

We head to York, Fontwell and Bath for today's three SmartPlays...

The Ballymacoll Stud-owned/Sir Michael Stoute-trained filly Liber Nauticus (14:45 York) is out of a close relative to Conduit, who landed a St Leger, King George and a pair of Breeders' Cup Turf titles in his illustrious career, and the daughter of Azamour can cement her place towards the head of the Oaks market by taking today's Musidora Stakes. She went into plenty of notebooks when justifying market confidence to impressively land a one-mile Goodwood maiden in September on debut, and with significant improvement expected, she can take this Group 3-event en route to Epsom.

Winning pointer Inner Steel (15:40 Fontwell) has had 20 goes at breaking his duck under Rules, but he's largely consistent, finding the frame in all but three of his 16 completions in that time, including on his last five starts, and with a largely uninspiring bunch in opposition, there's every chance that today will be the day when he finally gets his head in front. Perhaps his best recent performance was when chasing home Theatrical Star and Financial Climate over two and three quarter miles here last month, and he's posted fair efforts from higher marks than this in the past.

Thomasina (19:40 Bath) didn't pull up any trees in a trio of juvenile maidens in the second half of 2012, but shaped with a bit more promise when running-on late into fourth place in a seven-furlong Kempton event on last month's return, and there are good reasons to expect further improvement now that she tackles a handicap for the first time. Her dam was a winner at this one-mile trip and the assessor looks to have given her a fair-looking initial mark of 52, which combined with her yard's impressive record with representatives at this track make her a decent betting proposition this evening. 

Timeform UK SmartPlays:
Back Liber Nauticus @ 2.01/1 in the 14:45 at York
Back Inner Steel @ 4.1n/a in the 15:40 at Fontwell
Back Thomasina @ 5.95/1 in the 19:40 at Bath

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