Fred Winter Juvenile Novices' Handicap Hurdle

It's hard to be too dogmatic when punting in juvenile novices' hurdles, especially when there is a big field and the race is likely to be run at a frenetic pace, so it wouldn't be wise to get too heavily involved in the Fred Winter Juvenile Novices' Handicap Hurdle, which is the concluding race on the first day of the Cheltenham Festival on Tuesday. However, it would be foolish to ignore what is plain good value. As such, I cannot resist an each-way saver on Kalmini, who rates outstanding value at 16/1 with VC Bet. This four-year-old filly is a tough customer and, despite falling on her penultimate start, she has barely put a hoof wrong since being sent over hurdles. Far from disgraced when beaten ten lengths by leading Triumph Hurdle contender Afsoun at Huntingdon, Kalmini demonstrated a sound turn-of-foot when scoring at that venue on her debut before following up at Taunton where she beat two subsequent winners and smart sorts in Opera Mundi and Tarlac. Sheen West's charge, who is best suited to genuine good ground, conditions which look likely to ensue at Cheltenham on Tuesday, beat Opera Mundi by a length in that contest and, on just 2lb worse terms, can emerge on top again. The latter scored next time out on soft going over two and a half miles at Folkestone. The way he went about winning that contest suggests to me that dropping back to two miles on better ground is not going to prove ideal. As is invariably the case in novice hurdles, trainer Nicky Henderson is well represented and has the favourite, Royals Darling, in addition to Ostrogoth, both of whom have claims, while Andrew Balding has arguably his best chance of Festival glory thus far with his entrant, the Michael Tabor-owned Rosecliff. Like the selection, he relishes good ground, as he proved when readily beating Call Oscar and Wellbeing at Ludlow, both of whom have scored since, and he rates the main danger to Kalmini.