Three to follow from the weekend: 15th, 16th & 17th December…
Hold up! It’s stopped raining!!
Thank f**k for that!! 🥳🥳
Don’t even have my heating on this morning…
Actually that’s odd… it’s the 19th of December… 😏
Mind you, I was walking about London last Thursday morning eating a Solero ice-cream… although that’s because I was hungover to buggery 🤢…
The ice-cream did the trick just fine though 👌
By the way… does anyone else call Solero ice-creams SOLERINA ice-creams? After the James Bowe trained super-mare? Nah? Just me then…
She was some horse was Solerina! 22 wins from 40 starts… wow! Loved her…
Anyway… I’m way off track already…
What happened last weekend… oh yeah, Cheltenham’s December meeting…
Some serious performances over the two-days…
DYSART ENOS… potentially the best Fergal O’Brien has ever trained…
FUGITIF and IL RIDOTO serving up an absolutely belting finish to the December Gold Cup…
BROADWAY BOY continuing on his steep upward chasing curve…
And performance of the meeting, obviously, being previous ‘3 to follow from the weekend‘ inductee MADARA, who ran away with the Class 2 Quintessentially Handicap Chase on Saturday’s Cheltenham card, under a superb ride by Harry Cobden… no bias at play from me there… absolutely none… 😜
But who are this weeks ‘3 to follow…’?
Let’s find out…
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Three to follow from the weekend: 15th, 16th & 17th December…
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IN THIS WORLD (D Skelton)
5th in a Class 3 Handicap Hurdle – 1.15 Cheltenham (Friday 15th)
Didn’t get the smoothest of passages at a couple of stages of this contest but he stuck in well and was doing plenty of good late work up the hill, posting a career best effort in the process. The handicapper has been kind to him as he was as high as OR 131 at one stage, but he’s quickly been dropped to OR 120 and that does look a very exploitable mark for the 5yo.
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EUREKA CREEK (E Lavelle)
3rd in a Class 3 Mares Chase – 1.50 Cheltenham (Friday 15th)
A career best effort from the 7yo and she’s now back on a more realistic mark at present (ran here off OR 121 and was put up 1lb to OR 123), the return to her own sex was also a positive after her last two runs coming in mixed sex company.
I’d have her handicap ceiling somewhere around OR 125 and I’ve a rough set of Prime Conditions for her as…
Class 3 or less Mares races | OR <126
…where she has form figures of…
311232 (2/6, 4p – both career wins)
…and she’s worth keeping on the radar of the back of this effort…
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LORD DU MESNIL (R Hobson)
2nd in a Class 2 Veterans Handicap Chase – 2.25 Cheltenham (Friday 15th)
The 10yo is still banging in consistently high figures (on the Proform Speed Figure Scale) and I’d like to see him aimed at something out with the Veterans races, as he can clearly still run to a very competitive level.
This 2m5f contest would have been on the short side for him (with the ground riding a shade faster than the advertised Soft also not being ideal) and I suspect this was just a primer for something further down the line…
He’s worth keeping on the radar for when rocking up under his Prime Conditions…
Trips of further than 2m7f | Soft-Heavy | OR <150 | Days Since Last Run <57
…where he has form figures of…
1211122 (4/7, 3p – all 4 career wins)
In other news…
I’ve just finished reading ‘No Snail: The story of L’Escargot…‘ and I’ve reviewed it HERE>>>
Thoroughly enjoyable and there really should have been a book like this written about the horse long before now… A dual Cheltenham Gold Cup winner AND a Grand National winner… (thankfully David Owen has now righted that wrong)…
And…
The Racing PodBlast will be back this week! 😀
Tony Mac was on a week long drinking binge last week so we couldn’t record as normal…
Nah, only kidding, it was me that was unavailable 😄 but all good this week and we will be back ‘Jeezy Peepin’ as per normal… not sure what meeting we’ll cover… could do Ascot… could do Haydock… we’ll decide closer to the time…
You can follow the PodBlast on various platforms such as Spotify>>>
And as it turns out, according to my ‘Spotify Wrap’ over 200 of you lot had The Racing PodBlast as your NUMBER ONE most listened to Podcast of 2023!!
Legends… who ever you may be 😁😎
Xmas Week Offer…
A serious amount of top-shelf racing coming our way over the next week (and a bit) and I’ll be opening up the NTF doors for those that want to jump on-board for all of the festive action…
Keep your eyes peeled for the email I’ll be sending out on Thursday with all the details…
The Xmas sign-up page is here>>> 🤫
🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵
For this week’s musical closer… well given that one of the horses on the ‘3 to follow…’ list is In This World… the song picks itself… so here’s World Of Our Own by those lovely Irish lads Westlife…
😂😂😂 Yeah… right… here’s R.E.M and It’s The End Of The World As We Know It…
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Cheers and have a great festive period…
Ben (NTF)
p.s. if you not yet got your hands on the THREE FREE NATIONAL HUNT guides I released a couple months ago… then get your damn skates on and grab them from the following page…
Thank you
Cheers Alan – Ben (NTF)
Enjoy the read. Information good.
Thanks Bill, much appreciated.
Ben (NTF)
thank you ben
Cheers Ron 👍
Ben (NTF)
Great stuff Ben, but I was wondering what you thought of Protektorat? If you’d prefer to keep that opinion for your subscribers, that’s okay – my opinion is that he put in a career-best performance off 12st. As such, I think we may see similar tactics employed NTO. Sure, his jumping ain’t great, but he can take the fences in his own time when not having to force the pace. If he’s guaranteed to run in the Gold Cup, I can’t think of a better horse to be placed and he’s 40/1. This was the best performance we’ve seen by a staying chaser this season. Broadway Boy? For me, the jury is out – I don’t think he’s “improving” at all, he’s more assured but that’s all, and he needs to find another 10-12lb in my book if he’s to be a Festival winner in a graded contest.
All the best for the holiday, Ian @ Wayward Lad
Hi Ian
A significantly better effort from Protektorat (than his Betfair Chase run) but I think he’s become a little bit deliberate at his fences and I actually think a tilt at the National would be a good thing for him, starting to shape like one that would handle those fences well and he’s also really starting to lean into his stamina traits more and more… they’d need to get his mark down a few more pounds (down to at least 160, which shouldn’t be too tricky) but I think that would be a smart move by connections… highly unlikely he’ll win a Gold Cup, in fact they way he runs right now he’s unlikely to be a serious player in any Grade 1… the National though… he could just be one that has that touch of class but also endless stamina…
Broadway Boy… I actually agree with you… ‘steep upward chasing curve’ probably not the best way I could have described him at present… he didn’t need to improve on his last win to win on Saturday… a lot depends on how and if he learned from those second circuit blunders… hard to knock him because he’s winning races, and plenty of them, but yes, I agree, he does need to improve plenty to be winning out of handicap company (which could yet happen of course)…
Cheers and enjoy the holiday period – Ben (NTF)