It's day one of the May Festival at Chester and Matt Brocklebank has a couple of recommended bets on the card.
- The Value Bet is designed to generate long-term profit by searching for overpriced horses in the feature weekend races and at the big Festivals in the UK and Ireland.
- Following all of Matt’s tips to advertised stakes/odds since he took over from Ben Linfoot in June 2020 would have produced over 113pts profit.
- So far this year he's +21.64pts having tipped winners Aucunrisque at 14/1, Maskada at 25/1, Stage Star at 11/1, Tiger Jet at 16/1, Rebel Territory at 7/1, Rainbow Fire at 6/1 (R4) and Gloire D’athon at 14/1 (R4).
Value Bet tips: Wednesday, May 10
1pt win Knebworth in 2.05 Chester at 20/1 (General)
1pt win Lakota Blue in 3.45 Chester at 13/2 (General)
Chester’s Boodles May Festival never fails to capture the imagination and it’ll take more than a few thundery showers to dampen spirits at the Cheshire track this week. Having said that, underfoot conditions could be pretty miserable – on and off the course – on day one as some of the localised rain predicted throughout Wednesday is set to be fairly heavy.
Arrest is already fully proven on bad ground and he’ll take plenty of beating in the Chester Vase, likewise Savethelastdance in the Cheshire Oaks, for all that being by Galileo you’d imagine Aidan O’Brien’s filly will appreciate getting on a sound surface at some stage this summer.
She’s already favourite for the Oaks and Arrest is only around 16/1 for the Derby so they’re both very much ‘watch and learn’ races ahead of the next wave of Epsom trials at Lingfield and York.
The Lily Agnes Conditions Stakes doesn’t excite me from a punting perspective, though you wouldn’t be shocked to see Tierney go close first time out for Hugo Palmer with Oisin Murphy an eyecatching booking.
The tote £100k Guaranteed Placepot Every Day Handicap is more of an attractive punting race and while there’s a bit of guesswork involved here too given we’re dealing with largely unexposed three-year-old sprinters, there’s a good programme for such horses these days and I can rarely resist trying to solve them.
Two of these ran in the valuable three-year-old handicap over six furlongs at Newmarket’s Craven meeting and I think both are being a little underestimated considering how much they over-raced in the early stages on the straight track that day.
Kerdos ended up eighth and he’s got to remain of interest for Clive Cox who does so well in these races, but he’s drawn 11 here and preference is for the Richard Hughes-trained KNEBWORTH (stall six) who ended up a place further back in ninth in the aforementioned contest at HQ.
Gelded over the winter having raced eight times as a juvenile, Knebworth shaped reasonably well on his comeback when fourth of five at Lingfield in March, and I’m happy to strike a line through the last effort as he just blew his chance by racing way too freely.
His handicap mark has come down 8lb to 82 in just two runs this term which looks potentially quite generous for a horse who contested the Cornwallis Stakes last summer. In fact, that Ascot run when finishing 12 lengths behind champion two-year-old Little Big Bear is his only defeat from three starts at this trip as he won his first two races around Lingfield in the spring.
He obviously doesn’t mind a tight, turning track, he’s back at five furlongs for the first time in nearly a year and he also has the assistance of Franny Norton which is never a bad thing around Chester (three seconds and a third from four rides for the yard so far).
The other one to be on is LAKOTA BLUE in the Camden Pale Handicap.
Another breaking from stall six, there’s an awful lot of pace down on his inside but that should allow Faye McManoman to get a nice slot in behind the first three or four, who could ultimately set things up nicely for a horse who looked to win a shade snugly on his second start of the season at Ripon last month (replay below).
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The head margin that day means he’s only gone up 4lb and the revised rating of 87 looks perfectly manageable given he was rated 91 after winning his two novice races at Carlisle and Redcar last July.
A shot at the Gimcrack followed and he was understandably outclassed by Noble Style, Marshman, Cold Case, Royal Scotsman and co as a 100/1 shot at York, but he looks to have strengthened up nicely from two to three and obviously likes getting his toe into the ground having won on good to soft last term and soft just 11 days ago.
Click here for the full Value Bet record
Published at 1500 BST on 09/05/23
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