Native River to stamp his authority

We had a cracking result with the blog selections last Saturday, when I gave you not just the winner of the Bet Victor Gold Cup in BARON ALCO, but also the runner-up FRODON.  We can only try and find a similar winner today - fingers crossed.

At Haydock the feature race the Betfair Chase at 3:00pm has attracted only 5 runners and although the Gold Cup 1st & 2nd meet again, I feel this is disappointing as the 3rd prize is over £21,000 and there's no guarantee that one of the main challengers will not complete which leaves the 2nd prize of £42,000 available. I tipped NATIVE RIVER to win the Gold Cup and he's been a favourite of mine for couple of seasons and I will not desert him now.  I think Native River is a 5lb better horse than Might Bite and I cannot see him being beaten as he should be well up for this race.  Odds of 11/4 look a bit of a bargain to me, and having stablemate Thistlecrack in the race to help force the pace puts me even more in favour of Native River - there will be no hiding place and Native River has plenty of winning form on similar ground that he will find at Haydock today.

There is an interesting 3m4f chase race at 12:40pm at Haydock and I'm surprised that BISHOPS ROAD is not the fav for this, he's the forecast fav in the Racing Post at 4/1, but has slipped in the betting to 11/2 this morning. He runs well at Haydock having won the Grand National trial here over this trip in 2016, and he was rated OR154 after that run.  He's not the horse he was and he's slipped to OR135, but his form is not too bad and he only has 7 rivals, most of which have yet to prove they have the stamina for this.  The market fav is Little Bruce based on his win in a Class 4 chase over 3-mile at Hexham LTO, but this race is an entirely differnt kettle of fish to that one. 'The market 2nd fav is Red Infantry, but his form is difficult to rate, but I do not think his win in March at Warwick warranted a 13lb hike in the handicap to OR132.  Yes, BISHOPS ROAD with the benefit of Richard Johnson in the saddle looks a like winner in waiting and 11/2 looks fair value to me.

Selection:
Haydock 12:40pm  BISHOPS ROAD, £10 win @ 11/2 (available generally)