10.45am Weather woes for Warwick and Fontwell
Tony Paley: Heavy rain is causing problems for racing with Friday’s fixture at Warwick abandoned owing to a waterlogged track and Sunday’s excellent card at Fontwell under threat.
Twenty millimetres of rainfall within the last 24 hours - 13mm of which fell since 8pm - put paid to any notion of Warwick getting the go-ahead.
Clerk of the course Sulekha Varma said the rainfall had been four times that had been forecast. She tweeted: “With great regret, racing today has had to be abandoned. We cannot create a safe racing line around waterlogged ground.”
Fontwell requires “significant improvement” if Sunday’s jumps fixture is to go ahead. An 8am inspection has been called on raceday morning after 23.5 millimetres of overnight rain on Thursday left the ground heavy, waterlogged in places.
Clerk of the course Edward Arkell said: “Saturday is forecast to be nice and bright, which will be helpful, but we do need significant improvement ahead of the meeting.”
The classy jumps fixture is due to feature the Grade Two Totepool National Spirit Hurdle.
Friday’s best bets, by Tony Paley
Warwick has gone but Exeter still goes ahead where the ground will be pretty testing. Top Wood (4.50) is the suggestion at the track in the three-mile handicap chase. The selection won a hot handicap hurdle last campaign off today’s rating and ran well enough over hurdles last time to suggest he has the scope to win over fences.
On the all-weather, Sbraase (7.45) makes most appeal at Wolverhampton tonight. He has an excellent record on this surface, having never been unplaced here and was only just touched off over track and trip last time. He seems sure to go well with a decent pace pretty much guaranteed.
Cheltenham Festival Stat of the Day
by Paul Jones, author of the Cheltenham Festival Betting Guide published by Weatherbys
Discussing whether leading fancies can overcome the ageing process has been a major talking point in recent Betfred Cheltenham Gold Cups and with very good reason as in the 15 runnings since Cool Dawn became the last winner aged in double digits, all 65 horses aged 10+ have been beaten, which included 14 horses sent off at 10-1 or lower and four outright favourites. Bobs Worth, Boston Bob, On His Own and The Giant Bolster have that statistic to defy. At the other end of the age scale, Djakadam is statistically up against it at the age of six as only Long Run has won for six-year-olds since Mill House in 1963. However, he is a French-bred as was Long Run which means that he is not at quite as a big disadvantage in this respect but, unlike the 2011 Gold Cup winner, he has only raced five times over fences whereas Long Run had run nine times over the larger obstacles. Bobs Worth overcame his lack of chase experience two years ago when having only his sixth chase start when he won the Gold Cup, but he was an eight-year-old and battle-hardened after winning at the previous two Cheltenham Festivals.
The Cheltenham Festival Betting Guide is published on 20 February and you can buy that online here at www.weatherbysshop.co.uk or by calling 01933 304776. To receive £5 off simply quote CHELT15.
Tipping competition, day five
Our winners so far:
Monday
Gilzean 3-1
Gold Futures 6-1
Knock A Hand 4-1
Tuesday
Midnight Lira 13-2
Azure Aware 16-1
Hot Pepper 33-1
Wednesday
Aachen 5-1
Milan Bound 2-1
Ascendant 13-2
Thursday
Silver Duke 6-1
Hellorboston 15-2
The Darling Boy 4-1
And our leader is …
mai11 +22.50
. . . who shored up her position at the head of affairs by picking The Darling Boy. Jakebuckfast is only just behin on +22, having had Silver Duke and The Darling Boy. Other good scores: kingklynch +16, spiller +11, wiggy12 +7.50.
For today’s thrilling climax, we’d like your tips, please, for these races: 3.30 Lingfield, 4.20 Exeter, 4.50 Exeter.
This week’s prize is a copy of The Racing Post’s Cheltenham Festival Guide 2015, which will be printed this week. It promises to be “packed with invaluable advice”, including a race-by-race guide, key trends analysed, details on the Irish challenge, jockeys and trainers to follow and the views of the Post team. It retails at £12.99 and, if you don’t win, you can buy it here.
As ever, our champion will be the tipster who returns the best profit to notional level stakes of £1 at starting price on our nominated races, of which there will be three each day up until Friday. Non-runners count as losers. If you have not joined in so far this week, you are welcome to do so today, but you will start on -12.
In the event of a tie at the end of the week, the winner will be the tipster who, from among those tied on the highest score, posted their tips earliest on the final day.
For terms and conditions click here.
Good luck!
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