SUPREME NOVICES HURDLE - Aykay

[Aykay1]

SUPREME NOVICES Lets take the 2 trends that tell us (i) 26 out of the last 29 winners have been aged 5 or 6 years old. (ii) Every winner since 1996 won on its last start This narrows the field down to 7. ALBUHERA, BRAVE INCA, CARDENAS, FLEET STREET, JOHN OLIVER, LACDOUDAL, ZUM SEE From this final 7 i am going to lose the favourite ALBUHERA. Trainer Paul Nicholls hurdles record at the festival is 0/12, which obviously doesnt inspire confidence. Also, the winner of this race doesnt typically have more than 3 runs over hurdles, at the most 4. ALBUHERA exceeds this and that is enough for me to give him the elbow. The Irish have a cracking record in this race - theyve won 5 of the last 8 and 7 of the last 12 runningsa of this race. I seem to remember reading on another message board that they won it 7 times on the trot since 1977 although i cant find the post now. So lets side with them shall we? Therefore, Cheerio to FLEET STREET and LACDOUDAL. A break of 19+ days is desirable for the festival due to the competitive nature of the races there so ZUM SEE, having raced only 9 days ago is crossed off the list. In the last 10 festivals, the last 30 winning novices last ran within 42 days. This loses JOHN OLIVER who last ran 51 days ago. He is the sole representative of last years winning stable though so could still go well at a big price - around 33/1 available. We are now left with a shortlist of BRAVE INCA, CARDENAS. So with 10 pts to stake, my bets would be: BRAVE INCA - 5pts CARDENAS - 3pts JOHN OLIVER - 1pt ew