Our team pick out their best bets for Saturday's sport, including racing at Newbury, Premier League football and the Guinness Six Nations.
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Racing
David Ord
The Back Or Lay On The Betfair Exchange Novices' Limited Handicap Chase at Newbury is an intriguing contest – but MONT DES AVALOIRS looks the sort to leave his opening chase mark well behind – starting here.
Paul Nicholls’ charge made his debut over fences at Newton Abbot in the October of 2018 but reverted back to hurdles and ran with credit from a mark of 142 (which he starts from over fences) when seventh in the rearranged Betfair Hurdle at Ascot in February.
Wind surgery followed after pulling up at Aintree in the spring and he has returned in two good novice chases, meaning he has completed the three-race qualification for a mark.
He was beaten just over seven lengths into fourth by Champ at Newbury and chased home Angels Breath at a respectful distance in an Ascot match.
He’ll be a different proposition switched to handicaps here and is completely unexposed at staying trips too. With the Nicholls yard flying he looks ready to show his true colours again.
Ben Linfoot
There still looks to be plenty of mileage in ACEY MILAN's current handicap mark of 131 and he can prove it in the Betfair Bet In-Play Handicap Hurdle at Newbury (1.50) on Saturday.
The six-year-old first burst into prominence here at Newbury with a brilliant 11-length win the Listed bumper at this very meeting two years ago and he remains unexposed over staying trips over hurdles.
In just his second go at the trip he ran a stormer at Haydock two starts ago when second in the artist formerly known as the Fixed Brush and he’s easily forgiven his Chepstow run in heavy ground last time where he was a beaten favourite.
Trainer Anthony Honeyball has a terrific record in races of this type at this time of year (won seven from 20 at 35 per cent in 3m+ handicap hurdles in February) and the forecast good ground could help Acey Milan see out the trip.
ROUGE VIF well to chase home Global Citizen at Kempton over Christmas and should go close here at a track which will suit his style of racing.
Joseph O'Brien trained his first winner at Chelmsford on Thursday and he is fancied to maintain his excellent recent strike-rate when NEVER BEFORE makes the trip across from Ireland for the Ladbrokes Home Of The Odds Boost Handicap at Lingfield.
The No Nay Never colt posted a couple of very smart pieces of form early in his two-year-old career, big efforts behind the likes of Fort Myers and Siskin most noteworthy, but he had to wait until last month to finally get off the mark.
Having not been sighted since early July, Never Before returned with a huge run when just touched off over this trip at Dundalk in November before cruising round the same track to open his account just over two weeks ago.
He looks to be getting his act together now, both physically and mentally, and with Ben Curtis riding right at the top of his game at present, they could prove a match made in heaven with stall number one another positive.
Football
Backing Watford to win and under 3.5 total goals at 7/2 is incredibly tempting, but in the event of a higher scoring draw, the 2/1 available on the visitors to SCORE TWO OR MORE is much more appealing, even at a lesser price.
Pearson will have worked his men hard this week and the final outcome could ultimately decide whether his Watford players are allowed some time off or whether they are made to train for the whole time between their 15-day mid-season break. Perfect motivation.
They hit three without reply past relegation rivals Aston Villa and Bournemouth in the last six weeks and are well capable of getting the result at the Amex, where inconsistent Brighton have only won four times in 12 attempts this term.
As Dale Tempest notes in our latest Premier League weekly podcast - previewing the upcoming action, with debate and our latest fancies - winger Ismaila Sarr is key to Watford's hopes and, if fit, his quality could prove to be key here.
Paul Higham
Even if Oxford hadn’t just gone 120 minutes against Newcastle during the week you’d still fancy PETERBOROUGH to continue their flying recent form having strung four wins together when scoring 12 and conceding just two.
Oxford, by contrast, have scored just four in their last four and although they’ve lost just one of those, the lack of goals is a concern when facing Ivan Toney, who has scored as many goals by himself in the last four games.
The hosts are knocking on the door of the automatic promotion places now in League One after their recent run and with the third-best home record behind them they’ll be well up for making it five in a row.
It was back on Tuesday that Oxford pushed Newcastle all the way so gamely, but that will have taken plenty out of the legs and although they may not show immediately, second half in particular that could well play a part. Posh have scored five in four after the break so are dangerous against tired legs.
There are a few bookies who even have Posh as slight odds-on for this contest at the time of writing so the few firms offering odds against are worth a look at, including this stand-out price.
Rugby union
I was very much looking forward to Eddie Jones staying loyal to his starting Paris XV, and confidently tipping Scotland +9 in Edinburgh (though that handicap was reduced to eight on Thursday morning), and then the old wind-up merchant goes and makes pretty much all the changes I would have.
He has brought in five new starting faces, and they all make complete sense.
I was quite impressed by Scotland last week, for all that their old lack of a clinical, attacking edge was there for all to see. They looked a pretty physical outfit, which they will need to be against this English pack - especially as Eddie Jones has stuck six forwards on the bench, too.
What I thought was a straightforward handicap tip on Wednesday afternoon, having watched all the weekend games again, is now anything but given Jones’ changes.
However, the weather forecast suggests Murrayfield could get very wet by kick-off, so I have to stay true to my original thoughts and side with SCOTLAND +8 at evens, but simply scale back the stake.
Remember, England have now lost five of their last seven away games in this tournament.
Cricket
Richard Mann
MARCUS STOINIS has taken the Big Bash by storm, his 695 runs at an impressive average of 57.91 driving Melbourne Stars to a second successive final.
Stoinis has been a revelation since moving up to open the batting and Saturday’s rivals, Sydney Sixers, will be only too aware of the threat he poses having been powerless to stop his breathtaking 147 not out when these two sides met earlier in the competition.
As ever, Stoinis will be key to the Stars’ hopes, his calming influence needed to avoid a repeat of last year’s final collapse when imploding in the pursuit of only 146 against rivals Melbourne Renegades.
His dismissal for 39 set the wheels in motion for a dramatic collapse of 7-25 on that occasion and Stoinis looks worth backing to finish the job this time around.
Golf
The pick of the outright prices at the halfway stage is TRAVIS SMYTH at 8/1 each-way.
Ahead of the tournament, a poor record at the course meant Smyth was more than twice the price of new favourite Min Woo Lee. Otherwise he looked to have an outstanding chance, having been contending in bigger and better events than this of late.
To start the year, Smyth was 13th in the Hong Kong Open where Shane Lowry and Tony Finau were in the mix, and then he finished 11th in Singapore, where Matt Kuchar and Justin Rose filled the first couple of places with Jazz Janewattananond not far behind.
That's some of the very best recent form on display here and he's simply a much improved player from the one who failed to make an impact in previous editions of the Vic Open.
He's not quite of Lee's potential, but he is already a winner, he's got a full Asian Tour card to mitigate concerns over the pressure of playing for European Tour membership, and for now he's probably just a little less prone to making ruinous mistakes.
It's hard to choose between the two but they should be the focus against a vulnerable leader and the vote goes to Smyth at a marginally bigger price and with a shot in hand over the favourite.
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