- This topic has 7 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 2 months ago by
.
- Posts
The Jackpot goes to Newton Abbott tomorrow and I would be eternally grateful to anyone who can give an informed opinion on the final leg, a novice hunter handicap chase…..
- Total Posts 17716
Dutch Bill and Walter de Wodeland both have some recent form.
Final leg a novices’ hunter chase? Quite right, too. Work for the money!
Right. Here goes. All notes courtesy of my own fevered brain and issued with that caveat.
Matako
is the highest-rated of these at present by Mackenzie and Harris, but only by 1lb, and his rate of improvement is judged to have stagnated, despite two wins from his last three. That assessment might be based on his having already been beaten off when unseating late in a Charlton Horethorne Ladies Open last time, a race ultimately won by the reopposing
Walter De Wodeland
.
In Matako’s favour is that those previous wins at Wadebridge and Badbury Rings came on going variously described as holding and dead, and all three courses listed are left-handed (albeit not flat and sharp like Newton Abbot). I’ve also a fair bit of time for his trainer, Pat Bryant, who is continuing to bring Drybrook Bedouin’s half-brother Civil Disobedience along very nicely.
The horse closest-rated to Matako is the aforementioned Walter De Wodeland, who represents a trainer in Jackie du Plessis who’s had a very good season to date. Walter’s penultimate win was actually a walkover for his Members, but that win at Charlton was pretty taking, being a pillar-to-post victory characterised by some sumptuous jumping. He is a martyr to shin trouble and wouldn’t have enjoyed good ground at Larkhill prior to that, so plenty about the deteriorating conditions at Abbot is going to suit him splendidly.
Dutch Bill
is described in the current
Annual
as “a bit of an oddball (just like his partner)”, and he’s currently on an eight-race losing streak under the eccentric James Cole (who won the handicap hunter chase at Aintree on Holly Walk last May). The partnership didn’t appear to take to Abbot when a disappointing second favourite in this course’s own handicap hunter last May on better ground, yet they had finished second in this race last year on similar.
The horse is a bit hard for me to read, then, and you always have to factor in the risk of Cole taking the scenic route, stopping riding a finish to salute the crowd, or any of his other foibles.
Coral Cay
’s lofty position in the
Post
tissue presumably owes something to her third in a C&D novice hunter chase last April (good to firm), since when she has not been seen. A couple of runs were required on both her previous campaigns before hitting form.
I saw former Hereford bumper winner
Mic Aubin
win his Intermediate point at Cottenham in February on good to soft, and he very much enjoyed spinning off the tight right-hand turns there just as much as in that Rules victory. He beat an ordinary assortment for the class, though (the one genuinely progressive rival crashed out at the first), and the good to soft of that day wouldn’t have been especially horrible ground as Cottenham is among the very quickest-drying courses in the country, Rules or point. The projected going at Abbot remains an imponderable for an animal campaigned exclusively on good or good to firm under Rules previously.
What Of It
is trained by Tom George’s missus (successful with Van Ness at Sandown recently) and actually recorded the two “1”s in his formline last spring. They were still on deep ground, despite how late in the season they took place, and included a Restricted win around the ultra-sharp Welsh left-hander at Laleston. After an, ahem, gentle reintroduction at Whitfield this winter he did ever so well to run former Alan King / John Quinn inmate Gold Heart to 12l at Larkhill (dead going) last time – lots of good horses won’t get as close as that this season to an animal that’s taken to pointing with a vengeance.
At the moment, then, I’d be thinking of siding with either
WALTER DE WODELAND
or
WHAT OF IT
on the basis of recent attainment in points, though the facts both are front-runners having their first runs under Rules prevents unabounded confidence in either. Very best of luck whatever you decide to make of the above information!
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Jeremy, you’re a diamond. If we get it I promise to send you a magnum of your favourite bubbly!
Nothing to thank, Carvills. As I didn’t find Mic Aubin,
literally
nothing to thank!
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.