Things have been a bit quiet since Saturday.
We had a couple of selections on the day, with Shotgun
Paddy doing the best of the pair with a brave effort to be 2nd in
the 4-mile Eider Chaser with top-weight of 11st 12lb. Our other selection Virak also ran well, but
the pace of the race was too much for him on the ground which was the quickest
he’s run on this season. It would be no surprise to me if we did not see Virak
again till the autumn.
Yesterday, the weights for the Cheltenham Festival
handicaps were published and I will be looking over those at the weekend. There will be no Festival Bulletin this year
(due to time constraints) but I will be sending out some “donators only”
newsletters prior to the Festival, as well as having a daily blog throughout
the week of the Festival.
There are a couple of interesting meetings today at
Ludlow and Taunton. The ground is soft at both meetings, but there are patches
of better ground at Ludlow.
At Taunton, there is an interesting Class 3 novice chase
at 3:50pm over 2m7f. The one in this that has already caught my eye for
inclusion on the alert list is SANDY BEACH, who won his chase debut on
good-to-soft but has run well without winning on worse ground since. I’m not sure if today’s soft ground will
still trouble him, but he won be far away and we know he stays the trip and
jumps well – both important factors with novice chase races. The current odds of 4/1 look fair in this
5-runner race.
At Ludlow, there is a 2m4f Class 3 novice chase at 3:05pm
which looks the sort of novice chase that punters should avoid. As such, I’m
paying more attention to the next on the card at 3:40pm, the 3-mile Class 3 handicap
chase, which has a couple from my alert list entered. They are TOP WOOD and
ROYAL PALLADIUM. The latter went onto my alert list after trying to make-all to
win the “Badger” handicap chase on his seasonal debut, but was caught close
home that day. If he could repeat that effort today then he’d be hard to beat,
but he’s run poorly since not looking anything like the same horse he was last
November. It could be that early season
is the time to catch him as he won 3 of his 4 races in the autumn of 2014. TOP WOOD is clearly better than his OR133 rating,
as he’s shown that a number of times before the latest being on his seasonal
debut in December. He followed that with a poor run at Taunton (no excuses) and
the trip was too short for him LTO at Sedgefield. Current best-odds of 7/1 look too long for
him, if he can rekindle the form of his seasonal debut. The race-fav is Nexius, and this novice won
LTO (his 2nd chase race) over 2m3f quite easily. He’s been rated
OR136 on that run which could be lenient, as his hurdles rating (4 wins from 10
runs) is OR142, but the big question-mark for him is the trip as he’s never
raced beyond 2m4f. I think the 9yo Sun
Cloud needs some respite from the handicapper, as does Big Casino who needs
things to go his own way up-front. The
11yo Galway Jack holds his form well, but always seems to find one too good for
him and this trip will stretch him in any case. The Venetia Williams’ trained
Drumshambo would win this in a canter at his best, but we haven’t seen that
from the 10yo in some time now, and although he’s dropped to OR114 he needs a
rocket to get involved in this over a trip that will stretch his stamina.
Selection
Ludlow 3:40pm TOP WOOD, £5 eachway AND £2 win @ 7/1
(available generally, 5th odds a place 1,2,3)
Total Staked = £12
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