The horse racing broadcaster provides his five picks for Saturday's racing at Cheltenham and Doncaster.
After another lively few days of weather, the return of Cheltenham coupled with some soft ground will hopefully mark an acceleration in the momentum of the jumps season.
After being turned over with racing on Friday, the expectation would be that ground conditions will turn increasingly testing and it would be no surprise to see a few of the riders exploring wider parts of the track come the end of Saturday.
The more interesting betting propositions look to come towards the backend of the five races that ITV are showing from Prestbury Park and start with SEANIECON 100/30 (14:20 Cheltenham), a five-year-old who is open to significantly more progress than the majority that line up here. A winning Irish Point to Pointer connections wasted little time in sending him over a distance of ground with his small field Hereford victory coming over 3m 1 1/2f on Heavy ground. Not surprisingly, he found a Grade 1 assignment at Aintree too much to cope with but his excellent fifth in a big field Listed handicap at Punchestown in April showed his current mark of 127 to be very workable, as well as showing he can handle a big field. The yard have started the season brightly and he can make the most of the weight concession from Gowel Road for whom the rain will suit, but it may be that later meetings here in the season with this under his belt will be his main target.
Whilst Gowel Road’s record fresh is a bit patchy, first up definitely looks time to catch his stable mate UNCLE BERT 7/2 (14:55 Cheltenham). His form figures off breaks of more than 150 days (including his debut) read 2131 and he will also handle soft ground fine. October has always been a productive month for the yard (357/1768 A/E 1.10) and that includes 12/34 (A/E 1.11) in 2026. The philosophy seems to be to strike early, possibly before a few of the bigger yards (Dan Skelton obviously excluded!) are fully up and running. The quieter periods later on in the season means some of their horses will fall back down to marks by the season’s end that can then be exploited in the earlier weeks next time around. Uncle Bert is still a couple of lbs above the mark he won off at Aintree last December but 3lb lower than his January peak.
Finally NORTH SHORE 11/4 (15:30 Cheltenham) will appreciate the drop back to 2m in the Conditions Hurdle after his first run for the yard at Chepstow a fortnight ago in the Grade 2 Persian War. Whilst that was not a strong renewal, he looked more about speed and has shown in France an ability to cope with deep ground. The yard are very much target trainers and the application of cheek pieces and the drop in trip suggest intent. Skelton is 23/116 (A/E 1.33) with horses in first time cheekpieces (5/11 in 2026) and it is always a gear change to note.
The final domestic Group 1 of the Flat season is the centre piece of three races from Doncaster and is traditionally run on deep ground. Aidan O’Brien has an excellent record in the race where he usually uses the Beresford as the stepping stone, a path that favourite Noble Exhibit has taken this time around. The yard also saddles Sergei Diaghilev as Aidan tries to garner as much prize money as possible in his battle with Andrew Balding to be leading trainer. Whilst Noble Exhibit may handle conditions fine, his sire Frankel’s progeny do not typically excel under these conditions having an A/E of just 0.84 (underperforming market expectations by 16%) and that given the price is enough to make me prefer BURNING UP 3/1 (13:30 Doncaster), who already has a soft ground success on his CV when winning easily at Haydock and stamina certainly looked his strong suit at Newmarket in the Royal Lodge.
Doncaster coverage gets underway with one of the better looking bets of the day in top weight AL SHABAB STORM 100/30 (12:55 Doncaster). Winner of the Gosforth Park Cup he has fully backed up that effort at both Doncaster and York. He has won on soft, and the ground will hopefully bring his proven stamina over further into play over this minimum trip.
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