Kempton - Saturday 9th January

[The Brigadier]

There’s a bumper day for terrestrial TV viewers this Saturday with a projected 11 races to be shown on ITV. Included amongst those are some that have been ‘rescued’ from Cheltenham’s recent abandoned meeting and also the Welsh National which was lost to waterlogging on December 27^th. My thoughts on the latter can be found earlier in the forum and I’ll stick with Springfield Fox for whom it can not be soft enough. It’s forecast a dry week in South Wales but the covers are down on the track and I think when they’re off on Saturday we could be looking at very tacky ground. 

There's one race at Kempton which has taken my eye and think there’s a couple of bets here.

The race in question is the 1.10 the Unibet Extra Place Offers handicap Chase run over 2m 4f 110yds.

The first thing as always to mention about this race is that the ground is currently soft with a predominantly dry and cold forecast so I would be expecting good to softish ground.

23 have been declared at the 5 day declaration stage in a race in which 20 can run but the history of this race shows that the race does tend to cut up pretty badly with the last 8 running’s runners being 8,4,7,7,5,9,8,14 (latest first), which gives an average of 7.75% runners over that time span.

12 of the 23 have alternate engagements also so don’t be shocked if the race cuts up. Right let’s get on with the two to back then! 

Mrs Jane Williams has her small team in excellent shape with her last 5 runners finishing F1253 (the fall was in the lead when coming down looking the likely winner) and her ERICK LE ROUGE looks the one to be with each way. His last three runs certainly wouldn’t inspire you but his Kempton form figures of 1114 (the 4^th was in the Grade 2 Pendil Novices Chase) might. He actually won this last season from Gowiththeflow with the pair pulling clear of the third that day. His official mark that day was 134 and on Saturday he will race off of 137 having been dropped 4lb for his two lack lustre runs this season. The first of those was at Fontwell in October when the trainer’s representative said the horse had a breathing problem.

Well low and behold the gelding has had a wind operation since we last saw him at Wincanton 9 weeks ago.

So in short we have an in form trainer with a horse who has no other engagements this week, loves the track, won this last year and has had a wind op since we last saw him.

The other horse that jumped out at me as a big player is Kim Bailey’s ESPOIR DE ROMAY who has only had two runs over fences, beating Senior Citizen at Huntingdon in November and then an excellent 7 lengths second to Royale Pagaille at Haydock in desperate ground. The winner has gone on and bolted up in very impressive fashion at Kempton over Christmas boosting the Haydock form no end.

 

ERIK LE ROUGE (pictured below)1 point each way @ 10/1 Hills ¼ odds 1-2-3

 

ESPOIR DE ROMAY 1 point each way @ 6/1 Paddy Power ¼ odds 1-2-3-4

                         

[richard-westwood]

I'm being brave next weekend ....got the 2 x 33pt rollover bets from last weekend ....I could just pick a small race but I've got a better chance of picking a big priced winner in the big races so I'm gonna go for it ......first race I'm currently looking at is the rescheduled welsh national .......Ive passed it through the computer and I have ......

The two amigos    355 

Christmas in April  345 

Cloudy glen    341 

Well ......that seems pretty cut and dry .....what's anyones opinions on top 2 here ....especially 2 amigos....do you think hes worth putting up as the rollover bet given theres 19runners....gulp .....christmas in april is no mug though ....and looks a good type for this sort of race ...?

Currently 2 amigos is around  10/1 ...so that would be a 360 odd pt return bet 

Edited January 4, 2021 by richard-westwood