Penworthy

It is usually the Grand National at Aintree that throws up a delightful human interest story for the media to relish. Think Devon Loch throwing away the race when poised to win for the Queen Mother in 1956, Foinavon’s 100-1 victory in 1967, Red Rum winning his third National in 1977 and former crock Aldaniti and cancer-suffering jockey Bob Champion’s triumph in 1981. I could go on and on…but I won’t. Tomorrow I am hoping that it is the turn of the Betfred Derby (Epsom 1.30 p.m.) to produce a story to tug at the heartstrings when two horses, which I believe represent the best bets in the race, would each lead to a first-rate news story if they won.

James Tate is an accomplished young trainer who has won several top races in his time but landing a Group 1 contest is still missing from his CV. That will undoubtedly change at some point and the horse currently in his care most likely to achieve it for him is ROYAL ACCLAIM. Aged four, this likeable filly has only had five races in her career, which means there is still plenty of scope for improvement – particularly as the Newmarket handler has been patient with her to date. Tomorrow (Haydock 3.30 p.m.) Royal Acclaim will line up for the competitive Group 2 Betfred Temple Stakes. I am usually loath to tip horses which have not run this season but I will make an exception for this filly.

All-weather racing is usually not for me: it too often serves up poor quality fare featuring either horses past their prime or horses who are simply never going to have a prime worth mentioning. However, the one all-weather race that I do study in depth each year is the Jenningsbet Northumberland Plate and that is because, with prize money of more than £80,000 for the winner, it attracts entries from some of the best staying handicappers. As a result of scrutinising the entries that came out this week, I am having my first antepost bet of the flat season on a horse I am convinced is overpriced in in the race.

Lambourn trainer Dominic Ffrench Davis has started the Flat season in fine form with nine winners from just 37 runners for a winning per cent to races of 24 per cent. This year he has undoubtedly benefitted from an influx of more than 20 horses from high-spending owners, Amo Racing, but he is a trainer I have always liked because he gets the best out of his horses. I hope he lands his biggest pot of the season to date later today when he runs CALL MY BLUFF in the Tote Chester Cup (3.15pm). This six-year-old gelding has been with Ffrench Davis since he was a two-year-old winning four of his 14 races on turf and creeping up the ratings as a result. Last season Call My Bluff ran some good races but without winning any of his six contests.

Master trainer Aidan O’Brien provides a quandary for punters by sending over two very different horses from Ireland to contest tomorrow’s Qipco 2000 Guineas Stakes. Little Big Bear is officially the highest rated horse in the race (Newmarket 4.40 p.m.) after four impressive wins last season but he has never raced over further than six and a half furlongs. He may well not stay the one-mile distance of tomorrow’s contest over Newmarket’s demanding straight course. Auguste Rodin, on the other hand, is already tried and tested over a mile with two of his three wins last season coming over that trip, one on soft ground and the other on heavy. However, all the signs are that he will be better suited by a longer trip and he is already being talked about as the stable’s likely No.

The bet365 Gold Cup, that’s the former Whitbread Gold Cup, remains one of my favourite big race handicaps of the jumps season and I am pleased to say that I have a good tipping record in the race. A quick, slick jumper who stays well is required as the fences come thick and fast on this right-handed track with an uphill finish. I have already put up one horse in the race and that is Annsam each way at 16-1. I think Evan Williams’ talented gelding will be perfectly suited to this track given his tendency to jump right at several fences and I will be very disappointed if he does not run a big race. The 16-1 has long gone but the 10-1, six places, is still more than fair. There is no doubt that Kitty’s Light is the best handicapped horse in the race (Sandown, tomorrow 2.

Scottish trainer Lucinda Russell has her string in such fine form that she might win a race at Ayr this weekend if she entered the stable cat. From her five runners at Aintree last weekend, she ended up with two wins, two seconds and a sixth – quite an achievement. Pride of place went, of course, to Corach Rambler who landed the Randox Grand National. No tipster rightly gets many plaudits for putting up the favourite in a big race but I am pleased to say that loyal Spectator Life readers were put on him before Christmas – three and a half months before the race – at 20-1.

My late father, who was the kindest man I have ever encountered, introduced me to horse racing when I was a small boy. Although he died all of 33 years ago, I still remember his advice to me when betting on the world’s most famous horse race: ‘The best form for the Grand National is… the Grand National.’ He was convinced that very few horses were capable of both jumping the unique Aintree brush fences and truly staying the marathon trip, which is now 4 miles 2 and a half furlongs. So he concentrated his bets on horses that had done well in the race the year before. A few trainers seem to share my father’s thinking because the first three home a year ago all return once again tomorrow (5.15 p.m.

The new flat season and the Pertemps Network Lincoln at Doncaster (tomorrow 3.35 p.m.) will dominate the racing pages this weekend, and rightly so. The bookmakers have the correct horses at the head of the market for the Lincoln: two improving four-year-olds, Al Mubhir and Awaal, but both at cramped odds. I largely stay clear of betting on the flat for the first month of the season because it is hard to know which horses are fit and which are not after their winter break. If I was forced to have a bet, it would be an each-way play, many places, on Charlie Fellowes’s Atrium, another four-year-old improver who has won his last two races and will love the soft ground. A course and distance winner, Atrium is priced at around 12-1 which looks fair.

One of the keys to successful ante-post betting it to choose horses whose trainers are skilled at targeting big races. If you lead a horse to the well too many times, the well will eventually run dry. The trainers who pick up the biggest prizes season after season know that they can only get any one horse to peak form for two, perhaps three, big races in any given calendar year. It is for this reason that I have huge admiration for the talents of two men who share a trainer’s licence for the first time this season. That respect is not simply built on the fact that last week Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero provided me with a winning tip at the Cheltenham Festival: Iroko put up at 9-1 to win the last race on the final day.

If it feels like this column is appearing far more regularly than usual, that’s because it is. Normally a Friday-only offering, there have been four daily previews for the Cheltenham Festival and now this one to make it five columns in as many days. It’s been tough going finding winners this week but we got there in the end (Iroko tipped at 9-1 in the 5.30pm today). Today we return to a more standard weekend fare, and I have a strong fancy for the big race of the weekend. I put up two horses last week for the Boulton Group Midlands Grand National at Uttoxeter (3pm) last weekend and they have both been declared and are now trading much shorter than seven days ago.

Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup day is almost upon us and the rain-softened ground means the distance of 3 miles 2 furlongs plus will not be for the faint of heart or for those horses whose stamina is in doubt. In the Grade 1 feature race tomorrow (3.30pm), the favourite Galopin Des Champs oozes class but he is not guaranteed to stay the trip, especially in these conditions. In contrast, both Noble Yeats, last year’s Grand National winner, and Stattler, last year’s winner of the National Hunt Challenge Cup, will relish a stamina test but may not have the class required to win this championship contest. I put up two horses for the race all of two months ago.

The rain continues to fall at Cheltenham and so it is vital to look for horses that like soft ground on day three of the Festival tomorrow. Equine talent that needs the ground similar to the terrain of the M25 to show their best form might as well stay in their stables. One horse that could not have it wet enough is DASHEL DRASHER in the Grade 1 Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle (3.30pm). At first glance, his chances look easy to dismiss: he is ten years old and from an unfashionable Somerset yard with a little-known jockey taking on the biggest stables in Britain and Ireland. However, if Dashel Drasher, trained by the capable Jeremy Scott and ridden by the improving Rex Dingle, can get into a nice rhythm at the front of the field, he could definitely outrun his odds.

Few people enjoy the thrill of a winning punt more than me but there are times when betting becomes (almost) irrelevant. Tomorrow at 3.30 p.m. will be one of them. That’s when seven runners will line up for the Unibet Champion Hurdle, the first championship race of this week’s four-day Cheltenham Festival. I will be at the course to see what I expect to be a hurdling masterclass from Constitution Hill, Nicky Henderson’s vastly-talented six-year-old gelding and the odds-on favourite for the Grade 1 showpiece. To date his racecourse record is flawless: five wins from five races including victory in the Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at this meeting a year ago. Then he was heavily eased at the finish, yet still won by 22 lengths or more from the rest of the field.

With the start of the Cheltenham Festival just four days away, I am pleased to say that this column’s antepost book for the meeting is looking decidedly healthy. It can all go badly wrong, of course, over the space of four days but, for now at least, let’s live in hope. Over the past couple of months, I have put up 12 Festival bets and, particularly for the first two days, most of those horses are now being offered at significantly shorter odds by all bookmakers. With more rain falling than was expected this week – and with more to come – this will inevitably suit some horses that I have tipped better than others. However, that’s the ups – and downs – of betting several weeks in advance.

Trainer Sandy Thomson has long had a knack of improving experienced horses that are moved to his yard. A combination of the healthy Scottish Borders air and a new regime have done wonders for several veteran chasers over the years, including Harry The Viking, Yorkhill and Dingo Dollar. The secret? ‘Individual care. It’s all about trying to work out as quickly as possible what each horse wants. Every horse is different,’ the genial Thomson told me last year. This season a stay at Thomson’s yard has led to a marked improvement in the form of BENSON, a hurdler with plenty of miles on the clock when connections paid just £7,000 for him as a seven-year-old gelding last year.

If there is one trainer I think might have a memorable Cheltenham for the ‘home team’ in the face of stiff competition from Ireland, it is Harry Fry. The Dorset handler looks as if he has kept some of his best horses fresh and well with the hope of landing a couple of big prizes next month. If the betting market is a guide, then Fry’s best hope of a winner comes in the shape of Love Envoi, who will try to win Close Brothers Mares’ Hurdle on the opening day. This seven-year-old mare is a course specialist having won the 19-runner Ryanair Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle at the Festival last year. However, this year’s Mares’ Hurdle is ultra-competitive with both Honeysuckle and Epatante likely to line up.

Friends Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero have made a flying start to their new training partnership this season. Both names are on the licence but they have different roles: Greenall is the face of the duo at the racetrack, entertaining owners including several from the many syndicates that are linked to the yard, while Guerriero prefers to concentrate on training the horses and planning where they will run. It is a case of so far so good for the Cheshire stable as they have had 46 winners this season from 250 runners at a strike rate of 18 per cent (that’s before this afternoon’s racing). Their record for the past two weeks is five wins from 19 runners at an even more impressive strike rate of 26 per cent.

I make no apologies for the fact that over the next month I will spend a lot of time looking forward to what I regard as Britain’s finest annual sporting event: the Cheltenham Festival. Yes, there will be groans from racegoers that Guinness is a rip-off at £7.50 a pint; yes, it can get overcrowded even if you pay more than £100 for a club enclosure ticket; yes, the Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott-trained horses will win more than their ‘fair share’ of the big races. But the sheer quality of the racing, the exhilarating atmosphere and the beautiful setting of the course nestled beneath Cleeve Hill are all a joy to behold. Yet, as a punter, the enjoyment of the racing is always greatly enhanced by… a big-priced winner or two.