Racing tips: Ballabawn is the value option against the favourite

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Hexham was called off on Wednesday which is frustrating as both of my selections were running there but they had a frozen track and that's a fair enough excuse to call it off. 

I feel like we're never going to see Gold Emery run at this point 🤣. I've tipped him up twice and he's been a NR on both occasions, as well as being a NR a couple of other times due to the ground. I'll keep my eyes peeled for when he runs. But when he does eventually run doesn't mean he's an instant tip as the race has to be right and the value has to be there!

Newcastle 12:42

It could be risky going for a selection at Newcastle as it's not too far away from Hexham and they had their meeting abandoned. Newcastle is expecting temperatures of -1 for a few hours in the middle of the night, so hopefully, they can survive and the meeting goes ahead.

I'm not a huge fan of races like this as they are often plenty of unknowns, but to be fair this race doesn't seem like that. You could say the Jonjo horse is the main unknown having never run over hurdles and running a decent bumper race in March, however, the odds on him are shocking even though this race doesn't look all that competitive. For that reason, I think he is worth taking on and I'm going for the Donald McCain horse, BALLABAWN.

He was well fancied on hurdles debut at Ayr, which was also on stable debut, going off as 6/4F. He travelled OK into the race but his jumping lacked fluency towards the end and it looked like he was in real need of the run, with fitness being an issue. On the bare look of that form, you'd say it's not great, and the RPR of 89 would back that up, but I don't think it's that weak. The winner that day could be a decent horse, though he got a good ride from the front I still believe his bumper form suggests on soft ground he will be a 125+ horse. He beat Ahoy Senor in a bumper as well as Parisencore who has turned in a good hurdler. the horse who finished as runner-up at Ayr won his only bumper race, so there is definitely some substance. I'm not for one minute saying it's cracking form, but in a race like this where it doesn't look the strongest, I think he looks a good play against the favourite.

The fact he went off as favourite would suggest they like him at the Donald McCain yard. He is a PTP winner, which came on good/yielding ground, so the soft ground he encountered might not have been ideal and today's ground will probably be more up his street.

IF THE MEETING GOES DOWN I'LL TRY MY BEST TO PUT ANOTHER SELECTION UP IN THE MORNING.

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