Jumps Racing - 5th of February

[Monterosso]

3:00 Sandown - Miss Overdrive - 2pts @ 25/1 (StanJames) A wide open Grade 3 contest over this 2m 6f trip at Sandown, but I believe it could pay to side with this relatively lightly raced 7 year old mare. She comes here on the back of 2 decent runs, the first being a 7 length defeat to Barafundle, who finished 2nd to the David Pipe trained Grand Crus on his previous outing. The latter has since won a Grade 2 contest at his ease and is currently the 2nd favourite for the World Hurdle in March. The form of those races alone look quite strong, despite the wide margin winners. There should be a fairly good gallop from the off here, with numerous front runners lining up in opposition and that's exactly what my selection needs, as she sees out her races extremely well and gets 3 miles with relative ease. This 2m 6f trip is no problem for her, if it's a good stamina test and I expect it to be. The ground is currently listed as Good, which is another positive and although she has run well on softer ground last twice, she'll definitely find her chances increased by the better going. Although taking a massive step up to Grade 3, Miss Overdrive has been competitive at Listed level over just shy of this trip. She was staying on strongly that day from a long way back and gets another furlong today, so anything better than that run could put her in with a shout here, assuming she steps up on it a bit. She also ran well enough over 3m 1f when coming 4th of 18 behind Universal Truth last time out. The winner was a handicap good thing and won with ease, but the rest were pretty close together and if it wasn't for the very testing Soft/Heavy ground, then my selection would of been a lot closer. That was probably a joint career best performance, so this 7 year old mare seems to be in fine form and possibly ready to take another step up on what she has shown to date. Another positive for me is that due to being rated only 122, she gets to run here off a riding weight of just 10st 2lbs, which is bound to come in handy. Nick Scholfield is also remounting which is another plus, as he's a jockey I rate highly and he has ridden her on 3 occasions, with form reading ; 4-4-2. He seems to get a decent tune out of her and with conditions likely to be ideal, he can add what seems an unlikely victory to that sequence. The mare is trained by Andy Turnell, who hasn't had too many winners of late but his runners seem to be running with credit and making the frame, so hopefully that's the case once again with this runner. If she's there or thereabouts 2 out, then there won't be too many keeping on as strongly as her, though the only worry is how easily she seems to get outpaced when the business end comes along. This is a mightily tough contest but not beyond Miss Overdrive if she could put everything together, which she hasn't done too often. I do, however, think that the 25/1 I took is severely overpriced. She's generally a 20/1 shot now and 28.0 on the exchange, both of which still are too big as I marked her up as a fair 14/1 shot. Many at the head of the market are only such short prices due to their stables being big names. If this animal was trained by the likes of Hobbs, Nicholls, King, O'Neill or Henderson, she'd be much shorter in the betting. The preview sites seem to think she's not up to much progression but I completely disagree, as she hasn't shown her true abilities yet in my opinion. Todays conditions are perfect, the track should be perfect, the race should be run perfectly and the opposition aren't great shakes by any means. Henderson's Lush Life was the one I thought may prove to be a very big danger but the 8/1 available is probably about right, so I'll stick with the bigger priced selection obviously. Small/medium win stakes being placed, I would go each way normally but I'm cutting that out of my betting as an experiment so we'll see how it goes. If she places I'll be twice as disappointed but I'll take my chances at hitting the jackpot. Wide open race where anything could happen but she's definitely worthy of consideration at the current prices.

[StuSimmy]

Re: Jumps Racing - 5th of February 14:25 Sandown Alan King's Medermit looks to have the best form in this race to date in chase company as well as the best hurdles as well having been rated 158 over hurdles. Has only had the four races in chase company. A wide margin win on his chase bow at Aintree in a minor event but he then refused to jump in his following race. Since then he won another minor event at Plumpton before entering grade company at Cheltenham LTO on New Years Day. He ran a terrific race that day and only went down by three quarters of a length in 2nd place in a 13 runner field. Up into a grade 1 race today but I believe he is the one to beat in todays race despite several other improvers in the race. The front two were a long way clear of the others with the 3rd place finishing 22 lengths behind Medermit. 2pt Win Medermit @ 7/2 (Paddy Power - BOG)