Today’s best bets, by Chris Cook
Setting aside issues relating to the King George (Thistlecrack runs!), Colin Tizzard has another reason to think of this as a big day. Finian’s Oscar (1.05) makes his debut for the Dorset trainer in a novice hurdle at Hereford, having been bought for £250,000 at auction last month.
Tizzard teased the press about this horse when we visited his yard last Wednesday. Naming various animals as they whizzed past us on his uphill gallop, the trainer said at one point: “Royal Vacation, Alary, best young horse I got, Tom O’Brien on the back one ...”
Uh, Colin, what was that about the best young horse you’ve got? “Oh, I thought you’d missed that,” he said, smiling. “Can’t remember his name. I’ll tell you when he’s won.”
Groping for a way to identify the beast, I asked Tizzard if he knew its pedigree. “Yes, I do,” he replied, cheerily. “We bought him the other day. He’s raced once and won, in an Irish point. I don’t want to hinder him with too much pressure but he’s a beautiful horse.”
It became clear that we weren’t going to get a name, so someone asked about another horse and the conversation moved on. I found out later that we’d been talking about Finian’s Oscar and today we’ll see whether all this preamble is leading anywhere interesting.
Tizzard isn’t exactly Mr Novice Hurdles, a division in which his strike-rate of 12% lags some way behind the likes of Nicholls (32%) or Henderson (31%), who both run twice as many horses in such races. But his horse population is changing and there is an unprecedented quantity of talent at his Milborne Port stables now.
His excitement about Finian’s Oscar appeared genuine and really ought to prove significant. The four-year-old is well bred, as you have probably already intuited, being by Oscar (no, really) out of a half-sister to the champion chaser Finian’s Rainbow. He’s 100-30 as I type.
Caprice D’Anglais (3.10) is 9-4 for the novice handicap chase but I’ll take a chance, again, that Richard Hobson’s ex-French grey is now ready to actually win something. He was on his way to proving his mark of 86 is very lenient when losing the jockey in a soft unseat at Leicester’s fourth-last, which at least was too far out for the handicapper to be allowed to change his rating.
The ground will be very different here but he ought to be able to cope. I tend to think that physical and mental progress accounts for his recent improvement, rather than the chance to run on a decent surface.
Spoils Of War (1.55) could be the pick of the Ayr card at 9-2. Lucinda Russell’s charge took an age to get going at Hexham last time but he finished well and this extra half-mile could make a big difference. From the same rating, he should be ready to win now if he ever will be.
