Racing tips: Chase debutante Calidad is an interesting rare runner at Sedgefield for Harry Whittington

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Firstly, a thank you to Cairnzy for filling in for me again as I didn't have the time yesterday to pick the selections out for Saturday's racing. Unfortunately, Miranda didn't manage to win, but Cairnzy landed a nice double on Friday, which is more than good enough. 

Sedgefield 2:00

Like a lot of the races in the past weeks, the fields are consisting of small runners, which is frustrating as you won't get tremendous odds on offer. In this race, I don't think it's all that bombproof from the horses who have experience over fences, so I'm siding with the chase debutante, CALIDAD.

Harry Whittington has been hit hard with his yard in last couple of seasons, mainly this current season as he had the majority of his horses removed from his yard and placed in the likes of Paul Nicholls' and others, as the owner Kate & Andrew Brooks decided to remove their horses. As a result, Harry hasn't had the best start to the season, but in recent weeks he has started to find a rhythm, with two of his three runners winning, at decent odds of 3/1 & 7/1. Harry doesn't send all that many horses to this track, so when he does, they need to be taken seriously. In the last five years he has had a 36% SR at this venue, which has resulted in 8 wins from 22 runners. Adrian Heskin is a noticeable jockey booking, and isn't used all that much by Harry, but he clearly sees this as a good opportunity for a win as he comes up to Sedgefield for the one ride, which is saying something when you consider he has only been at the track for 4 rides in the last 5 years.

In terms of the form on offer, the top two horses in the market are very similar and share the same form line, so you'd expect them to be closely matched. It's difficult to say which is going to be better off on today's ground as they have both handled it well in the past, but I get the impression they are vulnerable to something more unexposed than they are. Calidad fits that bill, and has some decent form to his name over hurdles. But the fact that connections have gone straight to fences before even trying the handicap hurdle route suggests they feel this lad is a better chaser than hurdler. He is a half sibling to the smart chaser, Drop Out Joe, so there is plenty of encouragement that this transition to the larger obstacles will be beneficial.

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