Decent value at Wetherby

Many thanks again for the recent comments and general response to the blog.
Not a good day for me personally yesterday. Without a firm selection for the day, I tried to play the exchanges with a “back-to-lay” strategy – and after an early success, it all went wrong and I lost a fair wedge. Worse, was that I had the opportunity to “trade-out” for a tiny profit, but hung on waiting (hoping) for the horse my money was wagered on to make its move – it didn’t.
As such, fingers well and truly burned.

We are starting to enter that “twilight zone” before the Cheltenham Festival when racing becomes fairly dull. Horses with Festival objectives are not likely to be tempted onto the racecourse now.

There are a couple of meetings, at Taunton and Wetherby.
At Taunton, my interest is in the first race at 2:00, a novice chase over 2m3f. Normally, I give novice chasers a miss until they’ve had a run, but in this we have a potentially decent chaser in SHOREACRES. He was 7th in the Supreme Novices Hurdle won by Go Native in 2009, and then went chasing last season. He had 3 runs without winning (hence still a novice) and looks up to going close in this. He has plenty of useful form as a hurdler in addition to the run at the 2009 Festival, and when AP McCoy is in the saddle for Brendan Powell it usually means they are serious. The only reason I am not putting him up as a selection is that with just 5 runners and Paul Nicholls supplying the odds-on Qozak, current best-odds of 15/8 (Stan James) are not generous enough, and you are unlikely to get much better. If he were 7/2, then I may reconsider.

At Wetherby, the class 3 h’cap chase over 3m1f looks set to go to PACCO now that Sweden is a non-runner. The soft going and trip are no problem to him, whereas Quattrocento has never won on soft from 8 tries, and Pak Jak has never won from 12 races on good-to-soft or worse going. Much can be said of the rest of the field, and so PACCO at 5/2 looks decent value.

Selection:
Wetherby 3:15, PACCO, 1pt win @ 5/2 (Will Hill, best odds guaranteed)
Total = 1pt staked

Festival Antepost Review
We’ve looked at:-
The Ryanair Chase on 18th Feb 2011;
The Arkle & The Champion Hurdle on 17th Feb 2011.

The QM Champion Chase
So far, I’ve put up 3 selections for this race:-
MASTER MINDED, 1pt win @ 11/4 (on 26/1/2011);
FRENCH OPERA, 1pt eachway @ 50/1 (11/2/2011);
GAUVAIN ½pt eachway @ 25/1 (on 15/11/2010).
I must have had a bit of a turn when putting-up Gauvain, as he has looked nothing like a Champion Chase contender since the Autumn. French Opera did me proud last Friday at Newbury winning the Game Spirit, and I think that was one of the best 2-mile performances we’ve seen this season. That honour goes to MASTER MINDED when winning the Tingle Creek and I think were it not for his poor run in the QMCC last year, then he’d be odds-on for this year’s renewal. For me, Big Zeb looked immense when winning this last season, but he can be caught flat-footed on the run-in (as he was LTO by Golden Silver). Also, the proximity of Carthalawn rated OR149 and Scotsirish rated OR152 in recent races suggests that the form in Ireland isn’t as strong as it should be. Beating Sizing Europe by 7-lengths LTO does not look great form either, as that horse has been running poorly all season. At the open day at Ditcheat yesterday, Paul Nicholls was full of confidence about MASTER MINDED and as such I’m having another 1pt win on at 5/2 (available generally).

Selections:
Queen Mother Champion Chase on 16th March 2011
MASTER MINDED, 1pt win @ 5/2 with Victor Chandler

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