Cairnzy had a winner on Friday with Hyland jumping well under Nico De Boinville at Cheltenham, making it a good day for both jockey and trainer.
Conflated on the other hand was very poor and was weak in the market before his debut over the cross-country fences.
Rizzel's Tips
Lookaway 3/1 – Cheltenham 1.45
I definitely wanted to have a play in this race as I think it's not as competitive as it appears, and the hardest part was to decipher who had the strongest form amongst other things, and I eventually landed on Lookaway who did me a favour at this meeting last season when winning the Grade 2 hurdle race.
With the majority of the UK avoiding the rain, the ground is much quicker than many horses in this race would prefer. Lookaway will have no qualms with the good ground today, and in my opinion, he will handle it much better than the rest of this field. As far as chasing debuts go, his jumping was flawless. You can pick holes in the form as it was only a two-runner race, with Lookaway beating Personal Ambition, but I thought it was a great showcase of Lookaway's jumping as the pair were close and both asked for their efforts over the last three and he jumped them fluently, which was great to see from a horse no experience over fences. Earlier in the race he was big and bold at one or two, which should set him up perfectly for the more difficult fences that Cheltenham has on offer. He is very dangerous if given an easy lead of things, and I think if he gets into a rhythm, he is going to take some catching.
The form of hurdles is definitely up there with some of the best in the race. He won the Grade 2 at the November meeting last year and then was second to Captain Teague in the Challow Grade 1, which has obviously been franked since with the third finishing second in two Grade 1's from the Spring Festivals.
Weveallbeencaught 33/1 EW (4pl) – Cheltenham 2.20
Obviously, this race is going to be tough to pick the winner as it's a big fielded event and full of solid handicappers, but I had it between two horses, and I've opted for Weveallbeencaught instead of Ginny's Destiny and it's mainly down to the Christian Williams horse coming into this race with a couple of runs under his belt.
It will probably come back to bite me now I've said what my other fancy horse was, but the way that a lot of Paul Nicholls' horses have been running first time out, I think going for Ginny's Destiny is a big gamble. Weveallbeencaught has always been a horse with a solid reputation, mainly from when he was trained by Nigel Twiston-Davies. When he was with Nigel, they always felt when he went chasing he would be a much better horse, but last year he didn't prove that was correct, but I think that was mainly down to connections thinking he was a staying chaser, but evidently he isn't as his last race over 2m 4f around Cheltenham showed that is his trip. He clearly has the speed for the trip and his jumping was very accurate last time out, and with two runs under his belt, I think he has a superb chance of winning the big pot today.
He is 10lbs out of the handicap due to Protektorat turning up for this race, but Christian Williams clearly feels he can do himself justice and given the price he is, he is definitely worth a punt.
