Today’s best bets, by Chris Cook
One of the things I already like about ITV Racing is its enthusiasm for archive footage. Today, to mark the passing of Brian Fletcher, they’ve tweeted footage of his 1974 Scottish National success on Red Rum, which apparently the jockey said was the best win of his career.
What fun to see Red Rum being opposed at the final fence by John Oaksey, of all people, on Proud Tarquin! Horse racing history is made up thousands of delicious moments like this one and you have to make them available, at the very least, for new people thinking about taking an interest in the sport. If you let those people understand they’d be joining something with a past to be proud of, they’re so much more likely to step over the line into our world.
Sedgefield’s card has bitten the dust, alas, but we still have Huntingdon, where I’m interested by the 12-1 about Followmybuttons (2.20). He is not what you’d call a safety-first bet, having fallen by halfway on his only previous run over fences and having also had a significant bout of pneumonia earlier in his career which may or may not be relevant to the fact that he bled on his reappearance this season.
What I like about him is his powerful performance to win a Towcester maiden hurdle in May, the first time he wore a tongue tie. He was described then by his trainer, David Arbuthnot, as “an out and out chaser” and will probably prove well handicapped if he can actually clear the fences this time. Leighton Aspell, riding for the first time, is just the man to produce some ability from such a beast, if any ability exists.
Nicky Henderson loves a right-handed, flat track offering decent ground in midwinter, so of course he has some fancied runners on this card. But I’m not convinced that O O Seven is leniently treated for this first foray into handicaps and he might struggle to give 16lb to Mad Jack Mytton (3.20).
From the Jonjo O’Neill yard that is winning only occasionally just now, Mad Jack has a couple of bits of hurdle form from last season to suggest that he can win off this mark in the right race. He’s a full-brother to The Game Changer and a half to Johns Spirit, both Graded winners over fences, so there must be plenty of hope that he can improve again for this switch to the larger obstacles. He’s drifted out to 9-1.
Nothing good ever seems to come of tipping at Lingfield but 5-2 about Nonchalant (3.30) isn’t bad. Having dropped 35lb from the initial mark he earned in his Dermot Weld days, this grey made almost all from a wide draw at Wolverhampton last week and is only 1lb higher now.
Aled Beech, the claimer who rode him for the first time that day, is back aboard and they have a handier draw in one if the plan is to go forward once more.
