Cheltenham opens today

The first important fixture of the new N.H. season starts today, with the first day of Cheltenham´s October meeting. The racing is very competitive and easily the best jumps racing so far this season in the U.K. The opening novice hurdle at 15.10 CET looks to be between Bold Addition (Paul Nicholls/ Ruby Walsh), winner of his last 3 races, all in the spring, and Sizing Symphony (Harry de Bromhead/ Andrew Lynch), racing for the first time outside his native Ireland. The Irish horse could have a fitness advantage here, but we still prefer the Nicholls/ Walsh candidate, and the same team can follow up in the next race with That´ll Do.

The 3 mile handicap hurdle at 16.20 look very tricky; this is the first of a series which ends with a huge handicap at the Festival in March, and that race has been won the last twice by Buena Vista (David Pipe/ Conor O´Farrell) -his only wins in the last 4 years! We cannot imagine he can win so early in the season with this rating, and in any case he only seems to be the third of his stable´s three entries. Tom Scudamore rides Qulinton, but our preference is for Raslan (Danny Cook), a son of Lomitas. Lomitas is also the sire of Liberate (Philip Hobbs/ Richard Johnson), who has a good each-way chance in the novice chase at 16.55, and his trainer and jockey also have good prospects with Outrageous Request in the maiden hurdle at 17.30.

Today´s flat racing is very uninspiring - the main interest at Haydock will be to see if Richard Hughes turns up or not (see previous story). Possibly the best race is the fillies handicap over 7 furlongs this evening at Dundalk at 21.30. Three British challengers here - Richard Fahey´s Sioux Rising (RP Whelan) and Coolminx (Joseph O´Brien) and Kevin Ryan´s Blue Moon (Declan McDonough) all look dangerous, but our fancy is Flic Flac (Dermot Weld/ Pat Smullen).