General Sports uploaded (22/12) - Cheltenham Festival Week 8 & Race Previews uploaded - Andy Richmond’s Beating The Bias (17/12) uploaded - General Sports uploaded (15/12) - Cheltenham Festival Week 7 & Weekend Race Previews uploaded
8/10/17
The jumps season is starting to simmer up nicely and it’s always exciting watching the better novice chase prospects make their jumping debut, of which there have already been a number to catch the imagination. All-Inclusive Service and Jumps Season (from last season) members should have received their renewal invite so please get in touch if this is not the case, as indeed should any prospective new members. The service officially restarts at Cheltenham in November but doubtless I’ll also cover the Charlie Hall Meeting before then too before I will be taking a week off to attend to The Breeders' Cup. The Sunday Supplement will have to wait this morning so I can catch up with the trials from America last night. Suedois won again I see.
I have been looking at the Cheltenham Festival ante-post markets and there is a 25/1 shot that stands out for me at this stage as being ridiculously overpriced so I will likely put him up in the next week or two in Ante-Post Focus as there is a good chance that he will have his seasonal debut before the first of the 17 weekly Cheltenham Festival Ante-Post columns which is uploaded on the Monday after the Cheltenham November Meeting and the odds will diminish. I also have my eye on one for the Ladbrokes Gold Cup (formerly the Hennessy) where we got 16/1 early doors about Native River last season. I just have to do a little more digging to find out if he’s an intended runner for sure.
The quintet of novice chasers to most catch my eye so far are Sceau Royal, Diego du Charmil and Adrien du Pont in Britain and the Gordon Elliott-trained Death Duty and Shattered Love in Ireland. The same stable’s Fayonagh, who did us such a nice ante-post favour in the Champion Bumper, made her hurdling debut at Fairyhouse on Saturday looking a natural and her trainer was talking more in terms of the OLBG Mares Hurdle at the Festival rather than the novice events after the race and also in the first major Stable Tour of the season which was published on the Attheraces website. A shame to hear that One For Arthur is out for the season but encouraging to hear that the likes of Thistlecrack, Douvan and Faugheen are expected to return from injury as good as ever.
There are just two more days of the Flat Season that I am covering; Future Champions Day on Friday and then Champions Day the following weekend before it’s then jumps racing all the way. It has been a good Flat Season for us highlighted of course by Wings Of Eagles winning the Derby and the Horses to Follow column that is 28 points up for the season at starting price. I’ll give my ten horses to follow for the jumps season before the Showcase Meeting at Cheltenham. I thought that the Neil Mulholland-trained Doing Fine was an eye catcher over hurdles last week ahead of a crack at the staying handicap chase at the two-day meeting at the end of the month. I’ll probably be attending the first day.
Andy Richmond and Mark Ball have also been in fine form of late in their blogs. Both were very sweet on Donjuan Triumphant (13/2) as a horse to follow who then won the rearranged Ayr Gold Cup after also winning at 4/1 on his previous start. Andy has also highlighted Lady Perignon (14/1), Spring Loaded (12/1), Teruntum Star (12/1) and Russian Realm (10/1) as horses to note in recent weeks so is enjoying a very good autumn. Andy’s Beating The Bias column returns this week as does Mark’s blog where he will be giving his views on a variety of subjects including the Cesarewitch, Haye-Bellew fight, National Football League and a strong fancy for The Ashes first test.
Alan Potts has just embarked on a new series in his blog which went live on Saturday night telling betting tales from days gone by starting with how he found an edge at Kempton, which should be ideal reading material for those who enjoy a little nostalgia. Over the next couple of days I will be uploading my Big Race Trends for the leading 15 handicaps of the jumps season.
In sport, it’s Week 5 of the NFL later today and Andy will be back with his recommendations at around midday having gone 3/3 last weekend. After a week off due to the international break Premier League Picks is back on Friday with the feature game of the weekend being Liverpool v Manchester United. I understand why they do it but I’m no fan of putting on such big match ups at 12.30 p.m.
It wasn’t the highest profile of World Grand Prix Darts tournaments which Daryl Gurney won last night beating Simon Whitlock with virtually all the big names not involved from the quarter-final stage onwards but it was pleasing to see Mike Henderson recommend the winning score line of 5-4 in the final at 6/1. I have to say that Gurney’s on-stage antics really annoyed me and he’ll get panned by the Ally Pally audience again if he repeats them at the World Championships. The next tournament that Mike is covering for us is the Grand Slam of Darts that starts on November 11th.
That’s about it for this week except to say that I am running my first Sports Quiz tonight for 20 years at Kettering Rugby Club. If anyone fancies coming along in a team of up to four then please do. They will take place on the second Sunday of every month and all eight rounds are sponsored with good prizes from local businesses. If it’s too far away for you but still fancy a crack for fun at home then drop me a line on [email protected] and I’ll fire the questions over after the event.
