Cheltenham: day one

Cheltenham´s November meeting starts today with a really high class card and six very competitive races. Main event is the Grade Two novice hurdle over 2 miles at 15.25 CET,which sees leading candidates from some top stables in opposition. Jonjo O´neill saddles Tominator (Tony McCoy), a top staying handicapper (third in the Cesarewitch) who made a good start to his hurdling career when winning by 12 lengths at Bangor.

However he did not bdeat miuch and his jumpoing was not perfect: he will need to be sharper today. Court Minstrel (Evan Williams/ Paul Moloney) and Dodging Bullets (Paul Nicholls/ Ruby Walsh) both won over this CD at the October meeting and are also moving up in grade; of these we easily prefer Dodging Bullets, who was fourth in the Triumph Hurdle here and is high up the pecking order in his top stable, but Court Minstrel,.whose stable is in good form, should not be underestimated. However the really interesting one here is River Maigue (Nicky Henderson/ Barry Geraghty), a smart bumper horse who is making his hurdling debut and is highly rated by his shrewd trainer.

The novice chase over 2 1/2 miles which opens the card at 14.15 is another hot race, even with only 5 runners. Fingal Bay (Philip Hobbs/ Richard Johnson) has won 6 of his 7 starts, and was 2nd of 19 in a Grade One race at the Grand National meeting on his other start. He is expected to go right to the top, but faces a stiff task today in giving weight to Dynaste (David Pipe/ Tom Scudamore), a very smart staying hurdler from the team that won this last year with Grands Crus, and the 4yo Unioniste (Nicholls/ Walsh), an ex-French horse who has won his only U.K. start on good style. At these weights we just prefer Dynaste.

The cross-country at 16.00 is another good race. Uncle Junior (Willie and Paddy Mullins) won this last year, but finished well behind Orphee des Blins (Greg Wroblenski/ Jan Faltjesek) in the Grand Pardubitzer last month; it is the first time the Pardubitz winner has run here, and we hope he goes well. Balthazar King (Hobbs/ Johnson) is a real Cheltenham specialist and won the cross-country at the Festival here in March, when Wedger Pardy (Kim Bailey/ Jacqui Coward) finished third, Sizing Australia (Henry de Bromhead/ Andrew Lynch) fourth, Midnight Haze (Kim Bailey/ Nick Scholfield) sixth and Hello Bud (Nigel and Sam Twiston-Davoies) seventh. Balthazar King should go well again, but Sizing Australia is also a CD winner and meets him on better terms here; he is therefore our selection.

The three handicaps are all extremely tricky, but if we stick to horses trained by David Pipe, Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson we cannot go far wrong. Our fancies in the 2 mile chase at 14.50 are Kid Cassidy (Henderson/ McCoy) and Shooters Wood (Nicholls/ Walsh). In the 2 mile 5 furlongs handicap hurdle at 16.35, which is restricted to conditionals, our 3 against the field are Titan de Sarti (Henderson/ Jerry McGrath), Top Wood (David Pipe/ Tom Bellamy) and Saint Roque( Nicholls/ Harry Derham), but we also like German-bred Adelar (Venetia Williams/ Harry Challoner), whose stable is in a great form and who is an own brother to last week´s French group winner Aquatinta. The last race at 17.05 is restricted to amateurs and here we choose top-weight There´s No Panic (Nicholls/ Steven Clements), Swing Bill (Pipe/ M. Ennis), who won the race last year, and Jamsie Hall (Gordon Elliott/ Jamie Codd).

Betting forecast:
1. Race: Dynaste - Fingal Bay - Unioniste
2. Race: Silver Roque - Shooters Wood - Kid Cassidy
3. Race: Dodging Bullets - Tominator - River Maigue
4. Race: Balthazar King - Orphee Des Blins - Sizing Australia
5. Race: Top Wood - Saint Roque - Titan De Sarti
6. Race: There`S No Panic - Hunters Lodge - Jamsie Hall