Racing tips: Gold Emery eyes up first place on handicap debut

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Hurricane Harvey was a welcomed winner, tipped up at 7/2 and winning at 5/2. I'm gutted his odds dropped massively as I was doing the write-up as 13/2 would've been tasty. 

Le Cameleon didn't jump well today and I think he wasn't suited by the size of the field, with him dominating from the front last time in a smaller group. He eventually made a mistake and fell. I'm sure I saw him get up, so hopefully, he is OK and will be running again soon.

Hexham 12:00

I recently put up GOLD EMERY the other day, so my thought process stays the same for today's race so it's the same write-up as then:

For me, Gold Emery could progress past this lot and hopefully take this in good fashion. He's 1/1 over hurdles since moving to Donald McCain's stable from Colin Bowe's Irish yard. Colin is a well-respected trainer in Ireland, especially in the PTP field where he has trained many good horses before selling them for large sums of money. This horse wasn't bought for a stupid amount but he's clearly got some ability. He won 1/3 races when trained by Colin, winning on his final start. I think the form of his Hurdles debut rates as arguably the best form line in this race. I'm convinced the third horse (Heltenham) is well-handicapped over fences, though he finished second last time around (dodgy ride in my opinion). The 4th has since run well in many races, including grabbing a win and is currently rated 111 (ex 90 rated flat performer).

Gold Emery has a decent pedigree and is related to some smart types. He is a half-brother to both Cilaos Emery and Amalfi Doug. The former is trained by Willie Mullins and has won 9/23 including a Grade 1 and multiple G2/G3. The latter has come to the end of his career, but at the age of 12 he is still rated 115 over fences but when he was in his prime he was rated in the 130s and won a few Class 3s. Both of those horses stayed today's trip and in Amalfi's case, he stayed even further, which gives great optimism that today's trip will be fine, but he was a PTP winner over 3m, so that should prove he stays well.

Something else to mention is that connections have avoided two recent entries as clearly the ground wasn't ideal. They've opted for Hexham which suggests they want things to be perfect for him.

Hexham 1:40

With Sue Smith's horses returning to form I think you can give a chance to ABSOLUTELY DYLAN who has dropped down to a very low mark and is more than capable of winning off a career-low mark of 83.

He has previously run in this race in 2020 where he was sent off as favourite, eventually finishing as runner-up. That was off a handicap mark of 96 which is 13 lbs higher than today's rating and based on those numbers he surely has a great chance today. I think the recent run can be ignored as that was over a trip far too short and was off the back of a 459-day break, so will have stripped much fitter for the run and when a horse normally runs over a totally inadequate trip it's normally used for a fitness run. It's interesting he's only had two runs this season and they run him here on his second run, almost as if it's been a plan. That might sound daft with it being a low-class race, but it is something that happens especially with lower-tier horses. Considering he was a favourite for this race two years ago, it wouldn't be a shock if this was the plan all along.

Sue Smith had a terrible start to the season, which also happened last year, but when they do bounce back to form they tend to ride the wave and continue to have winners for a fair few weeks. Sue has had 3 winners from 9 runners in the last 14 days and the same numbers apply to Ross Chapman. This step back up in trip will suit this horse and the testing ground will help his chances too. He will more than likely come off the bridle before a fair few of these but I think Ross is the correct jockey to keep him going. He rode a winner for Sue on the weekend just gone and he had to give niggling on the horse who was off the bridle for at least half the race, before staying on much better than the rest. I imagine he'll need a similar ride today.

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