Newbury 14/01

[bowles10]

1.55 Cracking novice hurdle here with Mad Max a likely warm favourite & with the last 5 runnings going to the jolly will no doubt be hard to beat. However, Hobbs' knows how to race this course & with Cockney Trucker has a great horse to take on the favourite. Won here in November & was unlucky 1st time up to come up against Dee ee williams which has gone on to prove its worth over the last 2 months in top novice races. Also ran 8th in the festival bumper last season, a race which normally produces a large amount of winners.

[WoodyTHFC]

Re: Newbury 14/01 1.20 Planet of Sound 15 pts I put up Planet of Sound lto and was very impressed. He jumped pretty well from the front and won with some ease with only the second remotely close. That was a nice progression from his first chase run behind free world and showed once again his liking for the newbury track. Today he possibly faces a tougher task. He will have to give weight to a horse like French Opera who was second in a grade 2 lto, greenbridge who I dont think we have seen the best of over a fence yet and song of songs who hasnt jumped a fence yet competitively but could still be very useful and has often been highly regarded. However POS was impressive to me last year, I have often felt he has been held in high regard by the Hobbs team and he might be good enough to win agains at his favoured track. 1.55 Mad Max 15 pts Cracking race, class 4 on paper but for me this could be a graded race, especially from the perspective of the front 4 all of whom have impressed me this season. Cockney Trucker for example ran well in such a hot race on his hurdle bow before winning lto. He surely will apreciate the added distance today and is a real threat. Shoreacres too brings classy bumper form and hurdle form, very impressive on debut in a race that has worked out well and lost little in defeat lto. However the one I have gone for is the huge Mad Max, reportedly one of the biggest horses currently around. This one also had smart bumper form before winning on his hurdle debut when the front two were some way clear. He hurdled pretty impressively that day especially for a horse of his size and the horse he was clear with and just held off, karadak, boosted the form tremendously aftrewards with a good win at chelt. over the talented mahonia. Clearly Mad Max is naturally very good and whilst he is in a good race here, he might just have enough natural ability to overcome some good rivals. 2.30 Not Left Yet 15 pts Bit of a dark horse here. Not Left Yet leads the weights off 125 but such a mark may seem quite lenient for a horse always held in high regard and placed in strong company at times (lto he went off a single figure price for the WN.) However the most interesting thing for me is that it runs after a huge absence of 270+ days, for some horses that will be a problem but quite the opposite for this one. This one seems to thrive when fresh and has a notably good record when running fto, the last 3 times he has won fto for the season. Added to this is that the pipe team may have just found some form again after a drop in form before christmas, they have won 3 races on the trot now and the way they backed the horse who beat silk affair yesterday suggested they knew they were back to some kind of better form. Market could also tell a story with this potentially leniently handicapped horse.