Today’s best bets, by Chris Cook
Last week, I tweeted this: “So next week we might lose a cross-country and gain a Trump presidency #WhyHastThouForsakenUs”. I haven’t had a winning double for a while, so you’d think I’d be pleased, wouldn’t you?
Anyway, I shall leave the politics out of what is supposed to be an entertainment piece and confine myself to pointing out how hopeless the betting market was at predicting the outcome of a two-horse race. Despite unprecedented sums having been traded, Trump was never favourite until hours after the polls had closed, ie after the race had actually been run.
Even after the early results started to come through, he drifted out to about 8-1 on Betfair. It was only about 1.30am, if I remember correctly, that his odds began to crash and it was at that stage that the market became useful once more. TV pundits were burbling for hours more about what a close race it was, but anyone with an eye on a betting exchange had a clear idea of how the story was likely to end.
There has been 11mm of overnight rain at Exeter, turning the going to good from mainly good to firm, so Aux Ptits Soins will presumably be allowed to make his chasing debut in the 2.35pm race. He’s not a betting proposition, for me, but it will make for required viewing because he’s a major talent now tackling the job for which he might have been made.
This will be his first run in Britain outside the Cheltenham Festival, where he won last year’s Coral Cup before finishing fifth in this year’s World Hurdle. He had some pretty serious tooth / sinus problems in between but is now reported in robust health.
Paul Nicholls has another hot favourite in the novice handicap chase, as Boa Island has no penalty for his Wincanton success four days ago in a race for conditional jockeys. He’s well handicapped for sure but two quick wins against lesser opposition on fast surfaces around that tightish track make for a different test to today, on a rained-on surface around a more galloping circuit against a higher quality of rival.
I’ll take the 11-2 about Minellacelebration (2.00), from the up-and-coming Powys yard of Katy Price. A game sort, this six-year-old has been steadily progressive since March, initially over hurdles under an amateur rider and more recently over fences for Ben Poste.
Outpaced around here when making his chasing debut on good to firm a month ago, Minellacelebration achieved a really likeable success in a handicap at Aintree a fortnight ago and I think he’ll have more to offer. Proper soft going might not be for him but today’s conditions might be close to ideal, taking just enough accent off speed.
I don’t quite buy the McManus-owned Passmore as an odds-on favourite for the mares’ novice hurdle, her jumping debut having been no more than respectable after four beaten efforts in bumpers. I prefer 4-1 about Earth Lady (3.40), who is bred for the job as a sister or half-sister to five hurdles winners. She has the champion jockey aboard after a fair bumper effort under Tom O’Brien last month.
Bangor stages a really good staying handicap chase, for which Seventh Sky (1.50) is tempting at 20-1. He’s the sort of horse who wouldn’t normally get on my radar, being thoroughly exposed and with no real hope of setting a new personal best, but what makes him interesting is the excellent form Charlie Mann has been in this summer.
Mann has already had more winners this season (15) than in the whole of the last one and at a 29% strike-rate. Since the start of August, he’s 10/28 and it is not as though he owes it all to a fresh draft of youngsters from some new owner; his two most productive horses have been aged eight and nine.
If Seventh Sky is in the same bouncing form as his stablemates have been, he’ll be really interesting off the same mark as when scoring by seven lengths at Haydock in December. There’s an obvious risk that he may need this reappearance run but that is more than built into the price.
