Racing tips: French Paradoxe is great value on his seasonal reappearance

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Firstly, I want to apologise for the last couple of weeks; it has been horrendous, and no one is more annoyed than me. Yesterday, it was great to land 3/3 winners, as I thought we were due that on Thursday if it wasn't for a shocking ride. There were some good performances on Friday; now it's time to kick on.

Chepstow 2:30 – French Paradoxe 6/1 (1pt EW Bet365 4pl)

Oliver Signy's French Paradoxe was making big waves over fences last season, he has acquired a handicap mark of 139 which won't make this race easy, but I still believe there is more to come from this lightly raced chaser.

This horse managed to win three times over fences last year from seven attempts, but it should've been four wins. He was cruising at Ffos Las on soft ground, many lengths ahead when approaching the last for him to make a total mess of it and had a nasty fall. The fact he went on to win his next race showed how mentally strong he is as a fall that bad could've ruined him for a long time with that bad experience potentially haunting him. He then went to the Midlands National at Uttoxeter which is run over 4m 2f and he simply didn't stay that far that day, but something didn't seem right with him either as his jumping was poor and it came out that he suffered post-race heat stress.

He hasn't been seen since and has been given a nice summer break and n0w he returns I think he can kick on this season and potentially turn into a Class 1 horse at some point. The rain has done him plenty of favours as he handles the testing ground better than most, and I think as long as he's fit enough, he should be bang there.

Newmarket 2:40 – Zenon 28/1 (0.5pt EW Skybet 8pl)

I'm not going to ramble on with this one as he is a big outsider for a very tough race, but we know what miracles Willie Mullins has done over the years in both codes of racing and I think Zenon is worth a shot.

He has a good few in this race, so it's going to be difficult to pick out his best chance of winning this race but to see Zenon turn up is a surprise. This horse ran last time out over 1m 4f and that was the first run in 1135 days! he was tenderly handled in the final stages of that race, as it was definitely a welcome back to racing type of run and to blow away the cobwebs, so to see this horse turn up here on the back of that is very surprising. I can't imagine he'd be sending him over if he didn't believe he would have a good chance of handling himself in this race, especially after 16 days from his last race which on the back of 3 years off the track, there are much easier races to go for, so he must think he is fit enough and handicapped well enough to acquit himself in this race.

He has been a decent flat horse in this past, especially when trained by John Gosden many moon ago, which saw him being rated nearly 100. He seems to stay this trip out very well as was 4th/20 over 2m 1f at the Galway Festival in a race won by the wonderful Princess Zoe who went on to win Group 1 honours. Saffie Osbourne has been booked and the blinkers return after they were left on last time out.

Newmarket 3:50 – Knight 10/3 (1pt Bet365)

I kept the faith in Ylang Ylang yesterday and she repaid the faith, I'll be keeping the faith with Knight today, so hopefully he does the same.

I was very confident that he was going to win last time out at Sandown in the Class 1 Listed race, but Chindit put in one his career-best performances to beat my selection that day. Soft ground is what this horse wants, and he has already finished ahead of a couple of these in this race today, he has a few more new rivals to take on, but I would say his race last time out when beaten by Chindit was tougher as Chindit was in the race and he is a very smart horse on his day.

Knight will have to prove he stays this extra furlong but I didn't think he was stopping at the line at Sandown last time out so I have optimism that he will, and I think 10/3 is very fair odds, and I'd imagine he'll be a fair bit shorter come the time of racing.

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