Newbury National Hunt Preview for Saturday’s Graded Action
- By A.J. Ryder on February 11, 2011 19:40 GMT
Final declarations are in and all systems are go for Saturday at Newbury with racing observers declaring that the ground should be rated as good to soft by the time the action kicks off. We’ll be taking a look at the three graded features on the card and identifying the stand outs.
Aon Chase Grade 2
A slimmer field is confirmed for this 3m chase contest with Riverside Theatre and Sir Alex Ferguson’s What A Friend set to be the main contenders here. Both jumpers are trading at very short prices and punters can expect Riverside Theatre to go off at odds-on for this one. Fair Along deserves respect while Carronhills is likely set to be withdrawn from this one. Expect very active forecast markets as punters look to use the exacta to bet against one of the top two by pairing up a longer-odds selection on the bottom end.
Woolcombe Folly will be a big factor if the ground is drier than expected by the time the race actually unfolds. West With The Wind has been performing admirably in recent efforts and will look to be a factor here on the run-in. Paul Nicholls’ Tchico Polos has been running against slightly more talented contenders than this group in recent races so the gulf in quality could be shown. Oiseau De Nuit will be looking to get things back on track and Colin Tizzard’s gelding could be set to take advantage of a weight penalty on Cornas.
Totesport Trophy Hurdle Grade 3
Punters can expect Walkon to get bet down fairly hard in this relatively large, and accomplished, grade 3 field. The Alan King charge was just confirmed on Thursday morning and he is already starting to emerge as the puntes favourite ahead of this one. He trades around the 9/1 margin and that’s great value on a jumper who hasn’t finished outside the top two for quite some time. He is nicely-weighted for this and one has to wonder whether Solix can post winning form carrying such a high weight for the Nicky Henderson yard. Tony McCoy saddles Get Me Out of Here while The Betchworth Kid could be a ticket buster if he runs to ability.
