Thursday’s Racing Tips – Neil King’s hot streak can continue with the mare Cluain Aodha at Huntingdon

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Cairnzy walked away from Wednesday with a winner from the headline selection. Rossa Ryan was at his brilliant best by firing home Enpassant under a typical power-packed Rossa ride, proving why he is up there with the best on the flat.

The other selection's jumping at Ludlow was one of the main reasons why he didn't get the win. Sea Presenting was only beaten by 3L, but made some crucial blunders when the race was heating up and that ultimately chucked away his chances of coming out victorious.

In terms of today's racing, not much really stood out. I was hoping Gavin Cromwell's Bride's Hill at Huntingdon was going to be a decent price as she was poor last time out when losing as the 2/5F, but the punters have gotten stuck into her early price and she is a shade of odds-on. I think she will have come on plenty for that race and her chances are definitely the best, especially with Keith Donoghue making the trip over, which is always a positive sign for Gavin's horses. But, I'm not going to tip up an odds-on shot when I like the chances of another horse on the day.

Cluain Aodha 6/1 EW – Huntingdon 3.30

At some stage during the season, all yards go through a tough patch, some go on for longer than others but bad patches do happen and that has been the case quite a while for Neil King, but his stable seems to be coming out of that blip and his horses are starting to fire again, so it could be the right time to catch Cluain Aodha.

For whatever reason, connections have been racing Cluain Aodha around left handed tracks, which doesn't seem the best thing for this mare. She has been over fences in recent months, and on every start, she has shown a tendency to jump out to the right, which is never an ideal situation when you are jumping the wrong way that the course goes round. Today, she reverts back to hurdles and is on a right-handed track for the first time in a long time. This combination of over the shorter obstacles and going this way around can only be seen as a positive. Her sole career win came over hurdles, and though she did get better over fences with each start, she is simply much better over hurdles based on the small sample size of her chase starts.

Her handicap mark has come down drastically over the last 12 months and she is now running off a 7lb lower mark than when she won at Warwick back in March 2023. Her runs over fences have seen her finish miles from the winners, but if you go of RPRs, she hasn't run too badly and to be fair to the Racing Post handicappers, they are generally spot on in their evaluation of races. So with this said, the handicapper has done her a huge favour when in reality she probably didn't need to dropped as much as she has. This race is a bit of a hot one as there are horses in good form, but I think she is at an EW price that will be the safest option, and I think she will drift in the market due to the more in-form horses being those who will be fancied ahead of her.

Neil King had a similar patch last year where his horses weren't in great form, thus seeing their handicap marks tumble, but when he returned to form they all started to find their feet again off much-reduced marks, and I'm hoping this is a similar story for his 8-year-old mare under Jack Quinlan, who is a very underrated jockey in the jumps world.

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