Cheltenham Paddy Power Meeting: Glamnamstyle! Racing Post Hurdle – The Irish angle…

Today I’m pleased to announce the return of NTF guest Blogger Cathryn Fry. We are now buried deep in the National Hunt stuff so what better time than now for Cathryn to start delving into the Irish angle for us here at NTF (no better time Ben, I hear you all say!).

So without further ado I will hand you all over to Cathryn…

Glamnamstyle

The Racing Post Hurdle, the Irish angle – Cheltenham Sunday 18^th November

If we believe the hype then this is Darlan’s for the taking, indeed both stable and market vibes are extremely positive.  However, the horse that takes my eye is the Colm Murphy trained Glam Gerry, who does also hold an entry in the three mile Listed Hurdle on Saturday. On paper he has a mountain to climb for the Racing Post Hurdle, however…………

We last saw him running on extremely well to take the two mile October Maiden on the level at Navan. In the process he beat Go Native (granted that was his comeback race) and Jezki (Grade three winner at Naas on Saturday and eighth in the Champion Bumper ) Glam Gerry was also eye-catching when coming from way off the pace to snatch third in the Festival Plate behind Salut Flo. Watch the replay again and the ground he makes up between the last and the winning line is incredible, you have to look twice for signs of wings! Over the larger obstacles he can throw in the odd jumping error and these were apparent at the Festival. Hurdles should help his cause further and I think we are looking at a horse that is potentially ahead of the handicapper and the 33/1 currently available is huge.

Domination is interesting but does he always promise too much? Galway Hurdle runner up Causes of Causes would have a squeak; he had some very good horses behind him at Ballybrit (dear old Captain Cee Bee was third with Plan A fourth) Moon Dice and Rattan featured down the field and both hold entries here too. I was very sweet on Moon Dice for this race last year and I still think he would have won had he not run into all sorts of trouble before finishing fourth to Brampour. However, he came into last year’s renewal in far better form than he has been of late.  After the Galway Hurdle, Rattan won a two mile Hurdle at Tramore by twenty lengths before running third behind Baily Green and Domination at Killarney. He then went on to win at Listowel beating Miley Shah who slammed Trifolium by thirty two lengths in a Grade Three Hurdle at Punchestown. I like Rattan but he is not normally seen out past October as according to his trainer Willie Mullins, he doesn’t enjoy winter ground. Barring a deluge, conditions should suit on Sunday.

One Cool Shabra, King of Queens and Star of Aragon also represent Ireland. The latter won the Conditional Jockeys Hurdle at Cheltenham at the October meeting in 2011.

It is all about Glam Gerry for me, there was something about the way he won at Navan that suggested we are about to see an awful lot more from him.

Cathryn Fry

@cathrynfry on Twitter

Paddy Power meeting preview video…

As some of you may remember I took part in some Cheltenham Festival preview videos last term. The plan is to do more of those videos again this season but as there is a long way to go until March we (thats Jonathan Pollinger, Cathryn Fry and myself + a few added guests and regular contributors) have decided to do a live video-cast each week covering some of the big meetings and the weeks racing. The video-cast will be available to view directly after recording and can be viewed at your leisure.

You can view last nights episode below. Obviously I don’t speak much about the major races as they are covered exclusively for my full subscribers and all my in-depth analysis is kept for them. I will, however, be looking at a selection of other races and highlighting eye-catchers and horses to follow.

Enjoy…

Return To The Track (RTTT) – Free NTF System…

Hopefully most of you have been following this free system that I have been highlighting each day.

If not then make sure you check in every day to get the qualifiers.

Today’s post can be found at the following link –

>>>RTTT Qualifier 16-11-2012

The yearly P&L is also on their for this ‘grinder’ system. So far it is on track to grind out another year of profits…

Happy punting

Ben (NTF)