Sean Levey Ebor Festival Day Two rides blog: 'I think he'll once again be competitive'

Sean Levey looks ahead to his action at Ebor Festival in York and previews his two rides on Day Two in his latest Ladbrokes ambassador blog.

• Raakeb - York - 2.25 race odds

• Logi Bear - York - 4.45 race odds

To be honest, York has always been a fantastic track for me personally. When I started in England, I started up north and rode here on numerous occasions. I've always found it quite a lucky track, personally. Obviously, in recent years we haven't ventured up there as much as I'd have liked. But I've always really enjoyed riding here.

The biggest thing that stands out to me when it comes to this festival, I suppose, would be the Sales race, which I've won four times, and Richard [Hannon] has won five times as a trainer. We always seem to send the right types of horses up there for it, and we've been extremely lucky in it. 

Raakeb is up to six furlongs here, and is drawn low, but I have won this Sales race from a low draw before. I think the favourite is up there with me, so that will definitely be a nice assist. The ground is spot on for us - Newbury had just a little bit too much cut for him last time. We're stepping up from five furlongs, and I think he's personally better over six. 

Raakeb is ticking a lot of boxes, and when I look at the horses we've won this race with before, he's bang up there with them. He's a precocious type who was showing his hand early, and he took his opportunity at the first time of asking in Ripon earlier this year. He immediately got stepped up to run at Beverley in a very competitive race there - he ran very well on that day. From there, he ended up with a list of horses that went to Royal Ascot where I thought he was extremely competitive. If you discard his place at Ascot and just watch the manner in which he ran on that day, you'd argue he ran really well. 

We took the option of stepping him up to seven furlongs after that, hoping that would provide a bit of improvement, and he ran well at Newmarket but in hindsight that probably wasn't the best thing to do with him. So, he stepped back down to five furlongs last time out at Newbury in the Super Sprint. He ran really well in a very competitive race, and now we're in a position where we're back up to six furlongs here, and I think he'll once again be competitive.

Logi Bear is another precocious type who maybe needed that first run at Leicester; it landed right for him on that day and he ran really well there - the race itself worked out really well for him. He followed that up by running really well and finishing in second behind Havana Hurricane at Goodwood, before winning at Newmarket in May.

Since then, he's maybe found things a little more difficult, but there is form there - the question is whether or not he's improved at the same rate as the majority of horses that he's been running against. If he can prove that has been the case, then he'll be very competitive here. 

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