Trevor’s Racing Review

Today’s edition of my betting blog will look at some recent races and dish out some gambling advice along the way.

Featherbed Lane

Quite useful for previous connections, Featherbed Lane has improved further for joining Philip Hobbs. He took the 2m4f handicap hurdle at Aintree on Saturday in the style of a horse to follow. The necessity for soft ground will make future targets harder to predict but this fine big sort will still be competitively-handicapped despite the inevitable rise. He travels, stays and has a will to win so keep on the right side of this fellow in the coming months.

Knock A Hand

Richard Lee’s Knock A Hand gelding won the novice hurdle at Chepstow under a penalty in determined style making every yard. A mixture of Flat and National Hunt bloodlines have combined to produce a gritty staying sort with a great attitude. He looks to need testing ground but remains one to follow and will eventually jump a fence. For now, staying novice hurdles on soft ground look like his forte and a step up in class is inevitable.

Sir Res Champs

Unbeaten since joining Willie Mullins, including at last season’s festival, this French-bred made an excellent start over fences and, whilst he was fully entitled to win this, the manner was exemplary and he joins the list of promising novice chasers. With so much talent in the staying division and 2m unlikely to be a sufficient test, Willie Mullins may look at the Jewson novice at the festival but we will find out more in time.

Galileo’s Choice

Although very much second-best to the highly rated and clearly very useful Sous Les Cieux, Dermot Weld’s gelding again confirmed that he is pretty good himself. Lightly-raced and talented on the level (rated 100+) he has taken well to the Winter game and will be a completely different prospect on decent going. I actually think he can beat the winner on good ground and he is very much one to consider for the Supreme Novices (16/1 generally). His jockey looked after him because of the ground and if ridden more aggressively earlier he may have given Sous Les Cieux a real fright and there are worst bets for Cheltenham at this stage.

Bog Warrior

This imposing sort, for me, produced the best display by a novice chaser in Ireland this season and remains a very exciting prospect. Despite his name, on pedigree good ground should hold no fears but a history of jarring  means he is likely to be kept to soft conditions and that makes considering him for the festival at this stage unappealing. He jumps brilliantly for a novice and front running tactics seem to suit. He seems best at around 2m4f and will probably get a Jewson entry and on proper soft going is likely to be favourite.

Fingal Bay

Already favourite for the Neptune before Friday’s run at Sandown, Fingal Bay looked in real trouble as Simonsig loomed up approaching the 2nd last. He choose this moment to produce the best two jumps of his career so far and then ran right to the line in the style of a horse with plenty more to give. He is talented, likeable and on course to be hard to beat at the Festival. The runner up is clearly very decent and was laughing at the winner before the cards were played. His superiority over some nice types in behind suggest that he is likely to take high rank amongst the novices this season, especially with a drop in trip as he has plenty of pace.

Walkon

Always the apple of Alan King’s eye, Walkon gate crashed the novice chase ranks with the week’s star performance at Exeter. He jumped like an old hand with zest and accuracy and beat two notable opponents very easily. It is hard to imagine a more fluent debut over fences and he has to be considered for whatever target he has at the festival. The bookmakers appear to believe he won’t tackle the Arkle with 25/1 available but his trainer likes horses with plenty of stamina for that assignment and I believe this will be the target. If I’m right the odds are wrong and the only thing stopping me from lumping on is the nagging doubt of him reproducing this effort. Last year’s reappearance off top weight in a grade 2 handicap was very impressive but never repeated.

Kumbeshwar

Kumbeshwar didn’t match his stablemate Walkon’s exploits on his chase debut but did it very well nevertheless. He was confidently backed and I suppose with the increasingly dodgy Escort’men as 2nd jolly you could see why but that should not diminish his effort. He jumped pretty well with one notable blemish and always looked likely to prevail. I expect him to defy a penalty and remain very competitive in the short term without entering the Festival picture.