betHQ Editor
October 2, 2026
The BetMGM Sun Chariot Stakes (Fillies’ & Mares’ Group 1) is run at Newmarket at 13:35 on Saturday 3 October, over a mile, for fillies and mares aged three and up. It is racing’s top tier, worth £375,000, the going is good to firm, and seven are declared. One of them is odds-on, so the question is less who wins than what you do about a price that short.
A Race Shaped by One Filly
The betting has made Blue Bolt a 1/2 favourite and it is not close. Andrew Balding trains her, Colin Keane rides and Juddmonte own her, and last month she won the Group 1 Matron Stakes at Leopardstown, beating City Of Memphis by two and a quarter lengths. On Racing Post Ratings she is seven pounds clear of the next best here.
City Of Memphis is the one rival the market takes seriously, at 5/1. Trained by Paddy Twomey and ridden by Billy Lee, she carries the best Racing Post Rating of the six trying to beat the favourite — which still leaves her plenty to find.
After that pair the prices lengthen sharply: two at 14/1, and then three more at 20/1 and bigger. The betting has this down as a one-horse race with an argument about second.
What the Racing Press Are Saying
Owen Burrows, who trains Calendar Girl, told the Press Association the day before the race that he would be thrilled if his filly could simply get placed.
Jonathan Doidge, who tips the day’s racing for the Independent, is in no doubt about the favourite: “It will be a shock if she gets turned over.” Shocks do happen, mind, and at this price that possibility is the whole of what you are taking on.
Our Read
The betting and our figures arrive at the same filly, and Blue Bolt is, we think, the best horse in the race. Our view is built on three sets of ratings — Racing Post Ratings, Topspeed and Official Ratings — and she heads this field on all three outright, with no rival sharing a top mark. Confidence is Strong for that reason: she is clear of the field on the figures.
Then there is the price. At 1/2 you risk two pounds to win one, which means a horse at that price has to win about two races in three just to leave you level. Put the other way round: the price itself allows for her being beaten about one time in three. She was second in this race a year ago herself, beaten by Fallen Angel, who is not in the field this time. The two halves answer different questions — the figures say how good she has been, the price says how much of that you are charged for in advance. Back her and you are paying full whack for the best horse in the race. That is a reasonable thing to do, and it is not free money.
If you will not back odds-on, the alternative is Moon Target at 14/1. She is not a horse the betting has missed — we and the market broadly agree about her. What she offers is simply a far bigger price than the favourite. Sir Mark Prescott trains her, and as a three-year-old she receives three pounds from the older fillies.
Confidence on her is Speculative, because on the ratings our read is built from she is a long way off the best of these — ten pounds adrift of the top Racing Post Rating in the field. The honest framing is that she is the bigger-priced alternative for anyone who will not back an odds-on shot, not a horse we expect to win it.
How to Bet This Race
Our Selection: Blue Bolt, win single at 1/2, confidence Strong because she tops this field on Racing Post Ratings, on Topspeed and on Official Ratings, with nothing sharing a top mark.
A £20 win single returns £30 if she wins, a profit of £10; beaten, the £20 is gone. That is at the best price we found; shorter prices are out there, and they return a little less. There is an each-way bet here, but at this price the place half buys almost nothing, so it is a win bet or nothing.
A boost on your winnings takes a little of the sting out of a short price. The William Hill Daily Racing Winnings Boost adds something to the return on a winning bet; it does not make anything more likely to win.
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The Each-Way Angle: Moon Target at 14/1, confidence Speculative because she is ten pounds off the best Racing Post Rating in this field. As a win single, £20 returns £300, a profit of £280; beaten, the £20 is gone.
The each-way is worth costing out. A £10 each-way bet costs £20 — £10 to win, £10 for the place, with two places paid at a quarter of the odds. If she wins you get £195 back, a profit of £175, against the £280 the win single would have made. Second gets you £45 back, a profit of £25. Out of the first two, the £20 is gone.
Two places from seven is restrictive, and she has rivals ahead of her on the figures as well as the favourite. The upside of the each-way is £25 if she finishes second; the downside is the same £20 gone if she does not. Win single for the bigger return, each-way if you would settle for a profit on second. Place terms differ between firms, so check your own before you stake.
A 14/1 chance in a seven-runner Group 1 can drift a long way before the off. Best Odds Guaranteed at bet365 covers you if it does, paying the bigger price instead.
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Prices vary from firm to firm, and on a short-priced favourite a small difference is a large slice of your return — it pays to shop around.
What Other Tipsters Are Saying
These are the selections newspaper and online tipsters have published for the 13:35 at Newmarket, gathered on race-day morning.
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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 Sun Chariot Stakes Live
If you would rather watch on a phone or a laptop, bet365 stream live racing to eligible customers.
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On television, ITV’s schedule has the race live on ITV1, free to air. Racing TV, a premium subscription channel, also covers Newmarket on Saturday.
The Verdict
Blue Bolt is the best horse in the race: win single at 1/2, confidence Strong because she heads this field on Racing Post Ratings, on Topspeed and on Official Ratings — and the risk is the price, which asks two pounds of you for every one it pays.
Moon Target at 14/1 is the bet for anyone who will not back odds-on, confidence Speculative because she is ten pounds off the best Racing Post Rating here. Back her to win for the bigger return, or each-way if second place would satisfy you — the risk either way is that she needs the best of these to run below themselves.
Odds correct at time of writing, 2026-10-02 16:37 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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