Skip to main content

Cheltenham Showcase Meeting

We enjoyed a quality card today at the home of jumps racing for the first time in over six months, meaning the jumps season is well and truly underway. As I highlighted in my blog after the Festival, we will see Festival winners at every Cheltenham meeting over the next few months. Galvin was very impressive in the Novice Chase and he seems a solid candidate for the National Hunt Chase now, although not a betting proposition (at the moment anyway) at his price now. I am not sure if he would like a slog over 3 miles and 6 furlongs on soft ground but that is for another day. Similarly, Rouge Vif showed his true colours and proved himself the proverbial graded horse in a handicap. He looks a proper Grade 1 horse if he gets good ground. 

Tomorrow's action is probably more competitive and possibly slightly below the standard we saw from those performances but promises to be highly entertaining and informative nonetheless. I have had a pretty quiet month (April and October I class as transition periods) from a tipping point of view but I can't resist advising a small interest in Anna Bunina in the 2.05 at the current price of around 9/2. I thought she should be around 3/1 based on her last couple of efforts, particularly her second at Listowel. The third horse (10 lengths behind Anna Bunina) won a handicap hurdle at Punchestown easily next time and the winner has won on the flat subsequently too. I would be amazed if Anna Bunina isn't much better than her current rating of 131 and if that is the case it will take a fair performance from the other principles who have to give her plenty of weight. 


1pt win Anna Bunina (9/2 General) Cheltenham 2.05 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Royal Ascot Day 2

What an amazing day of racing we witnessed yesterday, sheer quality from start to finish. Personally, for me the highlight was Baatash winning the Kings Stand and putting the "myth" about Ascot to bed. There was no shame in being beaten by Blue Point a couple of times but he thoroughly deserved a win at the Royal meeting. For a horse that has achieved so much, I wonder if perhaps he doesn't get the credit he deserves? A debate for another day perhaps as today's card has taken quite a lot of time to go through! Again, my initial thought for day two is proceed with caution. There are a host of difficult handicaps with any amount of potentially well-handicapped horses and the Group races on the card offer little respite in terms of difficulty level. Addeybb would be a strong fancy if the rain arrives in time but to back him now would be guessing. The trendy horse for the day is clearly Ranch Hand for the concluding handicap at 4.40. I don't pay too much attention to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Irish Grand National Day

The Irish Grand National is the highlight of day three and indeed the entire weekend of the Easter Festival and as one would expect it looks a very competitive affair. More thoughts on that later but the two Grade 2s preceding the big race caught my eye from a betting point of view. They both had short enough favourites that I thought were beatable with a relatively small field and a couple of standout dangers to choose from.  The withdrawal of Beacon Edge has meant that the price of French Dynamite is now much shorter than it was previously in the Grade 2 hurdle at 3.50 and for that reason I am (just about) willing to let him run. The Bosses Oscar is now the clear favourite and perhaps justifiably so, but I think the price difference between the two is too big. French Dynamite has his ideal conditions here and he has run to a very high level when getting his optimum conditions in the past. He actually beat the The Bosses Oscar at Thurles last year and while there is a 7lb swing in...
Post a Comment
Read more

Arc Day at Parislongchamp

 While we may be more familiar with Irish and UK classics from a geographical point of view, the Arc is the best flat race in the world from a ratings perspective. The fact that we have what has been widely touted as the best Arc in a long time tells you all you need to know about the quality of today's field. From the moment she crossed the line in second in the Irish Champion Stakes I felt Tarnawa would win and nothing since has changed my mind, even though I am not as definitive as I was then. She has a good draw and should cope with conditions. The problem is that while she is in a stall that you want to be in, she will require luck in running and it is a large field of horses to get through, enhancing the possibility of traffic problems.  I think the winner will come from one of those at the top of the market and the two Godolphin representatives head those along with Snowfall. The draw and the conditions have brought Hurricane Lane right into it and he has replaced Tarna...
Post a Comment
Read more