Unfulfilled potential

It’s been a tricky week, and so I thought it best to take a day away from horseracing yesterday and try and come in the weekend fresh. There is plenty of decent racing today at Doncaster, Newbury and Kelso as we start to see horses running that will not be going to the Cheltenham Festival, but have other targets for the season, at Aintree in April for instance.

Doncaster holds the Grimthorpe Chase over 3m2f at 2:55 and Ruby Walsh rides there making a very rare visit. He’s only had 4 rides at Doncaster in the past 5 years and he rides several for Paul Nicholls today including JOIN TOGETHER in this race. I think Join Together has a great chance of taking the Grand National, he looks just the right sort of horse who will relish the ultimate test for horse and jockey, but I’m not sure about today’s race. The horse that win’s will need to produce a bit of speed on the run-in and for me, Join Together is one-paced. The horse I keep getting drawn to is NIGHT IN MILAN who finished with a rally here in December to go down by just a nose to Court By Surprise who he meets today on 1lb better terms. The fly in the ointment is Mr Moonshine who was also n that December race and is 7lb better off with NIGHT IN MILAN compared with that day. Mr Mooshine is slipping down the handicap but he looks a hard horse to win with and looks best when the going is “soft”. At the current odds, 15/2 looks fair value about NIGHT IN MILAN as the pace should be decent and suit his running style. Join Together will either win doing handsprings or flop, and I feel he’ll flop today on ground that is too quick for him over a trip that is too short.

The horse that I think Walsh is here to ride is TOUBAB who looks absolutely thrown-in with OR140 and finally gets his best ground. If this horses isn’t 155+ before the end of the season then Nicholls can’t do his job. Unfortunately, TOUBAB is only 6/4 so, as I don’t advise wagers at odds under 9/4, he’s not a blog selection. But, at 6/4 he could be the wager of the day.

At Newbury, the feature race is at 3:50the Greatwood Gold Cup handicap chase over 2m4f. The market thinks David Pipe has another handicap snip in Garynella, another French import who is 3/1 in the betting. Pepite Rose will have  a lot of support, but this horse seems to need racing and I’ll expect it to come on for today’s run. THE KNOXS has unfulfilled potential. Yes, he does have a problem with his jumping and took a heavy fall LTO when looking the likely winner, but he does look a lot better than OR145. At 6/1 (available Paddy Power, Stan James & Coral) he’s worth a wager.  

At Kelso, I expect BOLD SIR BRIAN to get the better of Harry Topper at level weights over a trip that may be on the short side for Harry Topper.  Odds of 100/30 (Bet Victor & Corals) is too big to resist in what is effectively a match.

Selections:

Doncaster 2:55, NIGHT IN MILAN, ½pt eachway @ 15/2 (various ¼odds a place, 1,2,3 all BOG)

Newbury 3:50, THE KNOXS, 1pt win @ 6/1 (available Paddy Power, Stan James & Coral, all BOG)

Kelso 4:15, BOLD SIR BRIAN, 1pt win @ 100/30 (Bet Victor & Corals, both BOG)

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