Very competitive novice handicap hurdle, 2 of the 3 winners of this had no more than 4 runs over hurdles so I will probably regret backing a horse that is more exposed than a few of these. But I am having only a small interest in BRITISH ART (20/1) who has just 1 win from 15 runs over hurdles. He has seemed to improve since they put the hood on him from last December, in 8 runs wearing a hood, he has won 1 (@ 14/1), placed 4 times and finished out of first 4 only once. Only one disappointing run (12th of 14) since December came over this c&d in February, incidentally they had left the hood off that day. He is 2 lbs lower than that slightly better race, that in itself wouldn’t be enough but I am hoping the hood will make a difference. Has run well for this jockey before, 33/1 3rd, 10/1 2nd, 14/1 4th from 5 runs with him on. I wouldn’t go mad on this as he could be vulnerable to less exposed horses, so I am having a very small win bet @ 20/1 and a bigger (not too big) place only bet @ 10/3 (4 places). There are many dangers on my shortlist, including The Caddy Rose and Asbury Boss.
Nice one, Dodd. I could have backed it for 5 places at 5/2 which wasn’t a huge difference from the 10/3 I got for 4 places, oh well. I also covered 6 horses on my shortlist in small combination forecasts and tricasts, and would you believe it, I had 1st, 3rd, 4th & 5th, luckily for me the 3rd got promoted to 2nd so I got the forecast. It wasn’t much of a profit though as it was too many bets to cover the perm, but tricast would have been nice.