Today’s best bets, by Chris Cook
It’s all very exciting that Douvan’s odds for the Tingle Creek have crashed, suggesting as it does that the talented young chaser will be turning up at Sandown on Saturday. But, as Tony Calvin has pointed out on Twitter, this market move may mean nothing at all.
The ante-post market for horse races is pretty weak these days and is easily led by the odds on Betfair. If you wanted to trigger an avalanche effect in a market like the Tingle Creek, you might be able to achieve it with a modest sum, if other punters followed you in and odds-compilers reacted to the price change.
Willie Mullins said yesterday at about the time of the market move that he had made no decision on whether to run Douvan or Un De Sceaux at Sandown and I don’t doubt him. We’ll find out in the next 24 hours what Mullins’s decision will be. I’m not inclined to think that the shortening of Douvan’s odds is any kind of an insight.
To Catterick, where the nap is Italian Riviera (1.00), a short price at 2-1 but perhaps not short enough. Since joining Ken Slack from Ireland, this seven-year-old has won twice from two outings, in a hurdles race at Kelso and a Flat race around today’s track.
The Kelso event has worked out, with both the second and third winning handicaps next time, by nine lengths in each case. Italian Riviera has gone up 8lb but I think that will still leave him on a very fair mark for what looks a winnable contest.
Catterick’s opener is a tricky event involving conditional jockeys but it strikes me that Recognition (12.30) might be overpriced at 12-1. He’s a three-year-old taking on older rivals in a handicap hurdle, which is pretty rare, but he might be up to it on a decent surface.
He’s not long out of Nicky Henderson’s yard, having won on his hurdles debut at Market Rasen in July and then run third in a fair event at Newton Abbot when he was giving weight away all round. His rating doesn’t look out of order for a horse that had some ability on the Flat.
Barry Murtagh had a winner the other day with the only one of his recent runners that started at shorter than 50-1. Lorcan Murtagh, who rides, has shown some ability.
At Ffos Las, the hurdles course is officially good to soft but I think it may ride softer than that if the GoingStick of 4.9 is accurate. That could suit Star Tackle (1.20), whose Irish points win in April came on going that was heavy in places.
The five-year-old was beaten 30 lengths on his debut for Harry Whittington at Chepstow last month but made the running to three out and still plugged on for fifth of 16. He’ll be sharper this time and could outrun odds of 16-1.
Michael Scudamore is literally on fire at the moment, with three winners from his last six runners and six from 16 since the start of October. He sends out one of those recent winners, Twenty Eight Guns (3.20), later on the Ffos Las card and I like her chances at 7-2.
It was around here that she scored 12 days ago on just her second run over fences; she was a point to point winner back in the day. An extra 6lb shouldn’t stop her putting up a big effort. Tom Scudamore takes over from Richie McLernon.
