Jumps Racing - Friday 18th of February

[Monterosso]

12:10 Newbury - Miss Overdrive - 3pts @ 16/1 (Bet365) A wide open class 2 handicap over an extended 3 mile trip at Newbury, 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 trip is no ideal for her, if it's a good stamina test and I expect it to be. The ground is currently listed as Soft, which is no problem to her, although I always thought she'd be better on better ground. Miss Overdrive has been competitive at Listed level. She was staying on strongly that day from a long way back and gets another few furlong furlongs 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 on her penultimate start. 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 120, she gets to run here off a riding weight of just 10st 11lbs, with her jockey, BJ Poste taking off another 7lbs to leave her effectively running off 113. 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. She ran awfully last time out, but that was in a Grade 3 contest at Sandown just 2 weeks ago. She smashed the 7th hurdle that day when already under pressure and never got involved, as she was well out of her depth. Now dropping back in class and up in trip, I'm expecting we'll see a lot more from this game Mare, who has enough ability and form in the book to land a race like this, if on song. Her jockey doesn't have the best of stats, having only ever won one race but that was when we was on board Miss Overdrive and he was also on board for her penultimate start, when she placed in a decent contest. He gets on alright with her and could be in line to get his second ever win if reproducing the effort when coming second behind handicap good thing, Barafundle, over C&D. 10/1 looks a perfectly acceptable price to me and the only doubt I have is how she'll handle 2 races in the space of a week, but at the price, it's worth taking a chance on. The favourite is much too short for me, he's vulnerable off this mark in this company and is probably better going the other way around. I'd much rather take him on and I feel Andy Turnell's charge is the one to do it with. She's priced at 16/1 which looks extremely generous to me, as I had her down as a 7/1 shot. Medium stakes in the hope that she handles the short gap between her races and does what she has been threatening to do for a while and win.

[ballyoisin_bomb]

Re: Jumps Racing - Friday 18th of February 0.5 pts eway Get me out of here 1.50 Newbury 10/1 PP BOG last years winner races of 15lb higher mark but he is taken to win again with mccoy up top.a close second in the supreme novices at cheltenham he could take all the beating if ready to go this time out. a wide open race but il take a chance on the champ..