betHQ Editor
October 1, 2026
The Irish Stallion Farms EBF Star Appeal Stakes (Listed) is off at 19:30 at Dundalk on Friday 2 October, seven furlongs on the Polytrack for two-year-olds, worth €50,000 with €30,000 to the winner. Listed is the tier just below Group company. The going is Standard, which on an artificial surface takes most of the ground question out of it. Eleven are declared, and the betting cannot split three of them.
Who’s Fancied — and Why
The market’s pick is Salt Lake at 3/1. He has had two runs and won the second, a maiden at Naas last month in which he was sent off at odds-on and duly obliged; before that he was second of sixteen over this trip at the Curragh. Robson De Aguiar trains him, and jockey D W O’Connor, aboard for that win, keeps the ride.
Behind him three horses share 9/2, which makes this a genuinely open market rather than a two-horse race. South Dakota won over this sort of trip at Roscommon at the end of August, and the horse he beat that day, Joga Bonito, is alongside him at the same price. So is Dee’s Funny Girl, runner-up over six furlongs at Ascot in July, with one run in France since.
Nobody carries a penalty: the colts and geldings all have 9st 5lb, the fillies 9st 0lb. It is a clean level-weights contest, in which the horse rather than a handicapper’s adjustment has to do the work. Three separate O’Brien yards are represented. Aidan O’Brien has won this race repeatedly in recent seasons, and last year’s winner, Andab, came from the Joseph Patrick O’Brien yard, sent off at 11/10 in a field of eight.
Our Read on the Race
The favourite first, because this is unusual. Our reading of a race is built on Racing Post Ratings, official ratings and recent form, and Salt Lake carries no official rating at all. He has had two runs, where six of the other ten have four or more, so there is not enough we can weigh to set him against these rivals. We have not assessed him. That is a gap in our evidence, not a verdict on the horse — it describes what we are missing, not what he is missing, and we would rather say so than dress a guess up as analysis.
Two others are in the same position. Aachen has had a single run and Fighting Tears two, and we have not rated either. The limit is what the form book gives us, not what the horses can do.
Where we can show our working, we come down on South Dakota. He shares the best Racing Post Rating in this field with Dee’s Funny Girl, and on official figures she is marginally in front, so the ratings leave them as good as level. What does is the most recent page of the form book. He won last time out, over seven furlongs at Roscommon; she was last of six at Deauville. That is the tie-break, and it falls one way.
The Roscommon win reads better the longer you look. The horse he held off was Joga Bonito, who shares his price tonight and who carried four pounds less than him that day. At level weights tonight, Joga Bonito has to find that four pounds and more. South Dakota’s rider, W M Lordan, who has been on him for each of his three most recent starts, keeps the ride.
The counter-case is not thin. Five runs is a short book for judging any juvenile, no all-weather run shows in his three most recent races, and he has not been seen since August. Dee’s Funny Girl holds the better official mark, by a pound, and has been seen at Ascot and in France. And three of the eleven, the favourite among them, are horses we have not rated — this is a read of most of the race, not all of it. The two halves answer different questions: the ratings and Roscommon say how good he has been; the counter-case asks whether it holds up in a Listed race on the Polytrack. Back him and you are trusting a good recent run over a short career — reasonable, not free money.
So South Dakota at 9/2 is Our Selection, confidence Fair — a label set by the race type rather than by any reservation about the colt. We cap confidence in two-year-old Pattern and Listed racing as a matter of policy, because juveniles are lightly raced and improving fast enough that a figure earned in August can be out of date by October. One bet is all we think this race justifies.
How to Bet This Race
Our Selection is South Dakota at 9/2, confidence Fair — a ceiling we apply to all two-year-old Listed racing, not a doubt about him. Take it as a win single: £20 returns £110 if he wins, a profit of £90; if he does not, the £20 is gone.
Resist the each-way, and here is why. Eleven runners means three places at a fifth of the odds, and a fifth of 9/2 is 9/10 — less than even money. A £10 each-way bet costs £20. If he places without winning, the win half is gone and the place half gives you £19 back, so a placed run loses you a pound. Finishing in the first three is not worth paying for here. Check your own firm’s terms; three places at a fifth is what this race offers.
A price like this can move a long way before the off. Best Odds Guaranteed from bet365 is there for precisely that. New and eligible customers only.
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Prices differ from firm to firm and move as the off approaches, so it pays to shop around.
What Other Tipsters Are Saying
betHQ collects newspaper and online tipsters’ selections each race-day morning; any for the 19:30 at Dundalk appear here once published.
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Indicated odds were updated on 2026-10-16 4:38:03 UTC. Please note that
odds are subject to change.
Tips cannot guarantee betting success. Review tipsters performance and bet responsibly.
Tips cannot guarantee betting success. Review tipsters performance and bet responsibly.
How to Watch the Star Appeal Stakes Live
If you would rather watch than follow the commentary, bet365 streams live racing from At The Races and Racing TV courses to eligible customers.
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On television, the Dundalk card is carried by Racing TV, a premium subscription channel. Free-to-air coverage had not been announced for this race at the time of writing.
The Verdict
South Dakota at 9/2 is Our Selection, confidence Fair — capped there because two-year-old Listed racing is harder to call than most, not because of anything we hold against him. He shares the best Racing Post Rating in this field, he won last time out, and the horse he beat at Roscommon now meets him on terms four pounds better for South Dakota. The risk is the one every juvenile carries: five runs is a thin book, and a two-year-old can move well past its form figures or fail to match them. Salt Lake heads the market and we have formed no view on him whatever — no official mark and two runs is not enough for us to place him among these, a statement about our evidence rather than about the colt. A win single is the only bet we are taking here.
Odds correct at time of writing, 2026-10-01 18:18 UTC. Prices change — always check the live table before betting. All tips and opinions here are our own. No bookmaker mentioned in this article has endorsed them. 18+. Please gamble responsibly. GambleAware.org
How we pick our tips
Every preview on betHQ starts from the betting market, not against it. The price a horse is trading at is the single best guide anyone has to its chance — it reflects the form book, the money and the opinion of people who do this for a living. So our first question is not “who wins?” but “does our own reading of the form agree with the market, and where doesn’t it?”
We rate every runner on five things: its Racing Post Rating, its Topspeed figure, its Official Rating, how it has run in its last three starts, and how it has fared against the other horses in this race when they have met. We then compare that order with the betting order. Handicaps work differently, because in those the official handicapper sets each horse’s weight from its official rating — so there we adjust the ratings for the weight carried on the day and leave the official rating out, rather than counting the same thing twice.
Most of the time we agree with the market about the likeliest winner, and we say so — across British and Irish racing the favourite wins roughly a third of all races. How often varies a great deal by the type of race, though. Favourites win appreciably more often in conditions races, where horses run off set weights, than in handicaps, where the handicapper’s whole job is to give every runner the same chance; and in the biggest fields their strike rate falls away sharply. That is our first tip. Where we differ is usually further down the betting, and if a horse looks better to us than its price suggests, and is good enough on ratings to be a realistic winner, it becomes our second tip. Some races only get one tip. That is fine.
We also tell you how we would back each one, because the bet you place matters as much as the horse you pick. A short-priced favourite and a 12/1 outsider call for different approaches, and the right bookmaker offer can improve either.
Two things to be clear about. The weightings above are our judgement, not a proven formula — we do not claim to beat the market over time, and nobody should treat our tips as a way to make money. And the prices we quote are the ones showing when we write, the evening before racing; they move, sometimes a lot, so always check the live table before you back anything. Please bet responsibly.
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