Sunday, February 26, 2012

A handful of Festival pointers before a Festival preview evening...

Thanks to the generosity of Coral, I'm attending the 2012 Cheltenham Preview evening at Haydock on Thursday. I'll blog about the debates and discussions after the event but in the meantime, with plenty of work to be done, I thought I'd give some quick pointers to my current thinking...

Tuesday:
Arkle
Jockey Joe Tizzard appeared notably bullish about Cue Card's chance on Saturday's Morning Line (9/1 William Hill).

Champion Hurdle
Oscars Well each-way (14/1 Coral) is of interest. Looked the winner of the Neptune last year before a blunder at the last cost him.

Wednesday:
RSA Chase
Invictus (12/1 Ladbrokes). A couple of months ago The Yorkshire Post reported that part-owner of Grand Crus Roger Stanley reckoned they were 70/30 more likely to go to the Gold Cup with their pride and joy. If that comes about, the RSA market will change markedly.

Champion Chase
Highly unlikely I know, but Peddler's Cross (20/1) would be worth a second look should connections have a rush of blood and run here rather than in the Arkle.

Champion bumper
Plenty of work to do but I'm considering Royal Guardsman and New Years Eve.

Friday:
Albert Bartlett
Paul Nicholls' Rocky Creek looked decent at Doncaster the last day.

Gold Cup
I take a positive view of Long Run's latest Newbury effort where he broke the track record.

I know a fellow racegoer who sees De Boitron as something of a dark horse but, with Graham Lee out, is keen to see who gets the ride. Ferdy Murphy's gelding finished fourth in last year's Grand Annual and holds entries in this year's race (16/1) as well as in Thursday's Festival Plate (25/1) run over two miles five.

I have no doubt I'll have changed my mind completely after Thursday evening's deliberations... ;)

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