Cheltenham & Doncaster tips: Best value bets for Saturday January 29
Value Bet tips: Saturday January 29
1pt win Eden Du Houx in 1.55 Cheltenham at 14/1 (General)
1pt e.w. Hill Sixteen in 3.20 Doncaster at 25/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5)
2pts win North Lodge in 3.40 Cheltenham at 5/1 (General)
Look North for best bet on Cheltenham Trials Day
Only two Irish runners at Cheltenham for Saturday’s Trials Day so I certainly won’t be getting too carried away in terms of unearthing a plethora of future Festival winners.
It’s only around 9/1 the aforementioned duo, namely Gordon Elliott’s juvenile Pied Piper and the Willie Mullins-trained mare Nos Na Gaoithe, both win in their respective races which would sum the whole situation up, but it’s clearly a big day for Nicky Henderson’s star pair Champ and Chantry House, not least with JP McManus needing just two more to bring up a remarkable 4,000 lifetime winners as an owner.
Champ is hardly a progressive young horse these days but you sense if he’s going to shine again at the Festival it has to be in the Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle, via this weekend’s prep.
I’d be less inclined to bank on King George disappointment Chantry House with cheekpieces fitted for the Paddy Power Cotswold Chase, though alternatives – let alone realistic ones – to the hot favourite are admittedly thin on the ground.
We’re only scratching the surface with the six youngsters set to line up in the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle but it’s not hard to envisage a few bubbles being burst and I’m relatively sweet on NORTH LODGE at the odds.
I was really impressed with the way he battled to beat Olly Murphy’s easy Sandown maiden winner Bombs Away at Aintree earlier in the season, defying a market drift in the process (14/1 SP), and the third horse from that race, Richmond Lake, has since won by 27 lengths at Sedgefield and bustled up Jonbon in the Rossington Main.
We’ve not seen North Lodge since that tough display which could put some off his chances here but trainer Alan King might just have deliberately kept the son of Presenting back for the spring. It’s worth noting the trainer did the same thing with this horse’s half-brother Winter Escape, who won first time out at Doncaster in December 2015 before coming back in February with two novice wins, including the Grade Two Dovecote at Kempton.
Here’s hoping North Lodge has something like that one’s raw ability (their dam, incidentally, is closely related to Black Jack Ketchum who won his first eight starts) as he could upset the much-talked-about Hillcrest and Balco Coastal if that’s the case.
Put faith in long-term Pipe project
Earlier on the card I can’t resist another fling with EDEN DU HOUX despite the ground potentially being a little bit livelier than ideal for him.
He makes a pretty swift turnaround in the Paddy Power Cheltenham Countdown Podcast Handicap Chase, having finished a good second to the progressive Frenchy Du Large at Chepstow early last week.
He’s always promised to develop into a useful handicapper one day and this season something looks to have clicked as he won first time up from One True King over two miles and then appeared to appreciate the step back up to this distance (was tried over as far as 3m6f last term) when beaten a length last time out.
The bare form of that race has to be taken with a pinch of salt as the winner was obviously idling on the run to the line but, at the same time, all the fences in the home straight were omitted on both circuits due to the low sun, and David Pipe’s horse appeared to be really enjoying attacking his obstacles out in front.
He was made to look relatively sluggish by the pacy Frenchy Du Large once the whole thing turned into a flat race so I won’t be judging Eden Du Houx too harshly; quite the opposite, in fact. The eight-year-old won’t get his own way out in front on Saturday with Coole Cody in the field, but there isn’t too much else to keep them company and I’d love to see Tom Scudamore pouring on the coals from a good way out here.
I can’t imagine he’ll need a second invitation to do just that and his likeable mount may prove quite hard to reel in over a course now renowned for its winning prominent racers.
The other one I liked in the same race was Nigel Twiston-Davies’ Torn And Frayed but I soon went off the idea after the initial 14/1 became 7/1 through Friday afternoon.
He’d looked a super handicap chase project in the making earlier this season, getting some vital experience in nice races here and at Ascot prior to chasing home My Drogo back at Cheltenham’s International meeting in December.
He was only 4/1 at Haydock when floundering on the heavy ground last time and, on the back of that run, has been dropped 2lb after Sam Twiston-Davies called it a day soon after turning for home on the second circuit. I wouldn’t be shocked at all to see him come back to life on some significantly nicer ground and prove his current mark a lenient one in time, but the boat was missed on this occasion.
Take Thomson to work his magic in Sky Bet Chase
There’s a brilliant field assembled for the Sky Bet Handicap Chase up at Doncaster featuring some really classy – and in-form – performers at the head of the weights.
Fusil Raffles is the obvious one having been mixing in Grade One novice company last spring and he made an encouraging first outing at handicap level in Cheltenham’s Racing Post Gold Cup last month.
A mark of 151 looks perfectly exploitable too but, similarly with stablemate Janika, I’d be more interested in him for the Plate at the Festival in March as he hardly proved his stamina beyond doubt when picking up the pieces following Shan Blue’s fall in the Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby. And this is going to be run at a decent lick, so I’m happy enough to cast the net a little wider.
One of the horses likely to be heavily involved in the early pace war is Storm Control and, having claimed back-to-back victories at Cheltenham early last season before losing his way, he’s got to be of serious interest here after a rejuvenated display at Newbury 10 days ago.
He’s got to shoulder the mandatory 5lb extra but remains fairly treated on peak form, is clearly on good terms with himself again, and 10lb claimer Daire McConville seemed to cope admirably with the nine-year-old’s quirks (can idle and pull himself up in front) last Wednesday.
However, he’s understandably come in for a bit of market support since declaration time and, at the prices, I ultimately whittled my shortlist down to Windsor Avenue and Hill Sixteen.
I’m pretty convinced Windsor Avenue does get this trip and he’s still totally unexposed as a three-miler, while it’s good to see his trainer Brian Ellison back in form again after a couple of Wetherby winners on Thursday. I can see him travelling well for a long way, providing he takes to the first-time blinkers (Ellison’s record when reaching for that particular headgear is far from inspiring), and he’ll handle the unseasonably quick ground as well as anything.
HILL SIXTEEN is definitely a bit of a law unto himself, as his chequered record would indicate, and he’s also most likely had a few wind issues having been shipped around from Sue Smith, Nigel Twiston-Davies and now onto Sandy Thomson after undergoing a breathing operation last spring.
But when this horse is right he’s more than capable of giving rivals of this calibre a run for their money, a fact underlined by his nose second to Snow Leopardess in the Becher Chase at Aintree earlier in the season. That was a huge effort from 4lb out of the weights and – crucially going into his debut at Doncaster – he seemed to get into a lovely rhythm for Craig Nichol on the flat, left-handed track on Merseyside.
That hasn’t been the case in his two runs for Thomson either side of that display, finishing sixth of nine at Carlisle first time back and not enjoying himself one bit on the quite severe undulations at Chepstow in the Welsh National over Christmas.
Good ground is no issue for Hill Sixteen having won on it at Newbury (another flat, anti-clockwise course) in 2020, and when it comes to Thomson it’s fair to say the trainer has a decent reputation when it comes to getting unpredictable staying chasers to bounce straight back from a poor run.
To hammer the point home, Seeyouatmidnight won the Veterans’ Final at Sandown after being pulled-up at Haydock a month beforehand, Harry The Viking won his second Borders National after being stuffed 50 lengths in his prep, while arguably the stable’s most high-profile win came courtesy of 40/1 shot Yorkhill in the 2020 Rehearsal Chase.
Yorkhill was also pulled-up just a month before winning that, but he also wore a first-time tongue-tie at Newcastle and it’s interesting to see Hill Sixteen sporting the same aide for the first time since joining Thomson this Saturday.
Admittedly, it didn’t do the trick in three tongue-tied outings for Twiston-Davies, but two of those were before the wind surgery and he was a fair third at Newton Abbot post-op in May, so on balance there’s enough to lure me into an each-way dart in what is one of the more competitive races of this nature run in the north of England all season.
Published at 1530 GMT on 28/01/22
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