2011 Racing Post Chase Betting Preview

Tony McCoy is confirmed for the tight betting favourite Fistral Beach ahead of this weekend’s widely-anticipated Racing Post Chase at Kempton on Saturday. The Paul Nicholls-trained eight year-old enters the race off a victory at Wincanton in his seasonal debut back in early January. He had Nick Scholfield up that day and this one represents his first partnership with the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

He didn’t achieve career-best figures to take that victory and it hinted that we’ve definitely not seen the bottom of him at this point. He’s won before at Kempton and that’s worth mentioning as he deserves a bit more credit than his last couple of races (barring the Wincanton score) might indicate. Fistral Beach trades around 5/1 with most major bookmakers.

Nacarat will be a real factor in this one and, without Fistral Beach, you reckon he would be a strong favourite in this one. He’s been out three times this season and scored on debut at Wetherby in the Grade 2 Charlie Hall Chase before running a respectable fourth to Imperial Commander in the Betfair Chase and then another fourth-place finish to Long Run in the King George VI. This is an easier field than he’s been slugging it out with and you can bank on him making a real statement if he’s fresh. Look for his 6/1 price to possibly get bet down a bit before the off.

Hey Big Spender looks in the mix at this point but it will likely take a career-best OR for him to pull off anything resembling a victory. He emerges fresh off a score at Wetherby two weeks ago with Joe Tizzard up and it was a really tidy ride on the day and he’ll have plenty of confidence. His price ranges from 14/1 to 10/1.

The real spoiler here appears to be Tatenen who was tipped in this blog to score at 22/1 in his last effort at Ascot. He wound up blowing several Scoop6 tickets on the day and he really showed what he was capable of. He had been knocking on the door for a while and tackling some respectable contenders. Look for him to maybe try to get on the lead early here and attempt to dictate the pace. He boasts plenty of earnings for a seven year-old and he’ll likely go off at a very nice price again in this one. Tatenen can be backed at a very solid 14/1.