Today’s best bets, by Chris Cook
I wonder if Thistlecrack is on his way to starting the King George VI Chase as favourite. I’d never have thought it would happen but the momentum in the betting market appears to be with him.
The best price available about both horses is now 11-8. Cue Card is shorter with most firms at a general 11-10 and, let’s face it, he deserves to be, as a multiple Grade One winner who appears to be as good as ever. And yet Thistlecrack seems on his way to shortening past him.
I can get as excited as the next guy about unexposed potential but Thistlecrack as fav for this King George would be going rather too far. Still, the pair of them must be doing their last bits of work any day now, so I suppose the thing we should be focused on at the moment is hoping they both get to the race.
Paddy Brennan, Cue Card’s jockey, is having his best autumn for years, with 35 winners since October began. He goes to Ludlow to partner Wizard’s Sliabh (2.10) in a mares novice hurdle and I assumed this one would be first or second favourite but in fact 6-1 is available.
That doesn’t feel right about Fergal O’Brien’s charge, who won a bumper at the second attempt and then scored on her hurdles debut at Market Rasen last month, when the step up to this sort of trip helped a lot. She stayed on strongly that day, despite not having hurdled terribly well, and I think the extra juice in this ground will help her, while possibly hindering the favourite, Tara View.
The other one I like on a low-key day is Quiet Warrior (4.00), a 9-4 shot in a sprint handicap at Newcastle. Once on 85 when with Marco Botti, he tumbled down the ratings while with Ado McGuinness in Ireland but Tony Carroll now appears to have turned his fortunes around.
After a Bath defeat on soft, his first run for Carroll, this five-year-old has won twice on the all-weather, at Wolves and Chelmsford. He’s up 5lb since the most recent of those but has more to give, I think, especially after a three-month break. Carroll has had four winners at 18% in the past fortnight.
