Our flagship racing tipster looks to end another profitable year on a high note with three selections on Saturday's card at Newbury.
Value Bet tips: Saturday, December 31
1pt win Blenkinsop in 1.50 Newbury at 9/1 (888Sport, Ladbrokes)
1pt win Grumpy Charley in 2.25 Newbury at 12/1 (BetVictor, Coral)
0.5pts e.w. You Wear It Well in 3.00 Newbury at 25/1 (Sky Bet, BoyleSports 1/5 1,2,3,4)
Coral Challow Novices’ Hurdle day on Saturday and Newbury’s Grade One event has attracted a bumper 14 runners.
Decent field sizes are a feature - thanks in part to the frost-based abandonments the other week – throughout the Newbury card and this is a proper turnout for the main race which looks set to be run on ground no worse than soft.
Cheltenham’s Grade Two Ballymore winner Hermes Allen has the reputation and the rating (142) to boot, while he’s clearly from the ‘right’ yard too given Paul Nicholls has won this four times since 2003 courtesy of Cornish Rebel, Denman, Bravemansgame and Stage Star.
His jumping – a little scratchy first time up at Stratford – was much better given an easy enough time of things out in front last time and he’s going to take a bit of beating, even without another step forward in bare form terms.
He’s priced up extremely defensively around 11/8, though, and the two I like at much longer odds are Thomas Mor and YOU WEAR IT WELL, with a small each-way bet on the latter the way to go.
One of two mares in the field, along with Dan Skelton’s Vicki Vale, You Wear It Well represents the same connections who had a bit of fun in the novice hurdle division with Thebannerkingrebel a couple of years ago, and this horse is building up quite an impressive profile.
Granted, she’s yet to meet anything of the calibre of Hermes Allen but she was a promising second to the useful Mullenbeg in a mares’ bumper on debut at Ludlow back in January, since when she’s unbeaten in three visits to the track and barely seen another rival in the process.
Her initial hurdles effort at Worcester came on good ground and Gavin Sheehan clearly knew what he was dealing with as he promptly made all on the well-backed daughter of Midnight Legend, while she went on to defy a penalty with consummate ease in more testing conditions at Hexham in the middle of last month.
Sheehan is brilliant from the front and does well with such tactics at this track too, so if there’s any advantage to be gained by pressing on early then you can rest assured this jockey will maximise that edge. Quite a few of these have led in the past, including Hermes Allen of course, but I think the majority will be looking to take it a bit steadier now raised in class and You Wear It Well might be able to capitalise as a prominent pitch is rarely a bad thing around Newbury.
Whether she’s classy enough is obviously the big question but I was dead impressed with the way she went about her business – in a good time – when last seen and there must be a chance the official assessor has her all wrong with a relatively low rating of 125 having recorded two of her three wins in the north.
That’s the hope anyway and I’ll be backing her each-way with one of the firms offering four places in the hope she’s well placed and able to hang tough long enough.
The Coral Racing Club Mandarin Handicap Chase is seriously competitive with bookmakers offering 11/2 the field at the time of writing.
Snowden and Sheehan have a live one here too in Lingfield winner Tallow For Coal who is evidently progressing well, while Certainly Red was brought down early on in that same Lingfield race and has only gone up 5lb for his subsequent wide-margin win in the fog at Wincanton.
Both deserve respect but it could be worth rolling the dice with GRUMPY CHARLEY, who has never run a bad race from three previous visits to Newbury and can be excused the lacklustre comeback effort behind subsequent Coral Gold Cup winner Le Milos at Bangor, when presumably in need of the run.
He was due to reappear in the Welsh National Trial at the start of December but skipped that engagement (self-cert) and comes here instead which could really suit.
A three-time winner over hurdles at two miles, Grumpy Charley raised his game again when upped in trip as a novice chaser last term and his defeat of Fern Hill (now rated 140) off just about level weights was followed by a respectable third (albeit in receipt of a stone) behind Bravemansgame here in February.
It didn’t really work out for him in the spring, but he’s come down the ratings as a result and, after another 3lb ease for the low-key first run of this season, gets in here off 135 - 2lb lower than when last successful. In addition, any more rain would be a positive for him.
Earlier on, I’ll be having a few quid on BLENKINSOP for the in-form Henry Daly in the Coral Bet Bundles Handicap Hurdle.
Something has evidently clicked for this horse since being sent handicapping this winter and it’s coincided with the step up to this sort of trip which has obviously helped.
He absolutely hacked up at Southwell towards the end of November and was successfully turned out under a 7lb penalty at Exeter earlier this month when not everything went smoothly at all. Held up last, he met traffic turning into the home straight and then seemed to get there far too soon as he ran around once in front.
He went left and fiddled the last flight but eventually consented to run on again when he heard another horse getting within striking distance and the bottom line is he looked to win with loads in hand still.
He’s effectively running off 8lb higher here but sneaks in near the foot of the weights and is surely over-priced against the inexperienced novice Pikar, who has been off the track for whatever reason since his winning reappearance at Chepstow in October.
Published at 1300 GMT on 30/12/22
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