Juliette's weekly frolic
No one claiming the faintest connection with or interest in horses will need telling that we're into Cheltenham week, and at the risk of incurring the wrath of readers in faraway places who will be receiving my pearls of wisdom after the event, Wednesday and Thursday tipping, are the order of the day.
Phil Bull's recently published survey into the likes and dislikes of the betting public revealed a definite preference for gambling on posh pattern races rather than the more traditional medium, handicaps. A racing correspondent must serve her public, but I fear the required conducted tour of the Gold Cup, Champion and Triumph Hurdles is only going to end with the same predictable short-priced conclusions you've read in a hundred other places. In the Champion Hurdle, for instance, it would be foolish to look beyond Comedy of Errors or Lanzarote and presumptious to attempt to separate them. This applies equally well, of course, to Pendil and The Dikler in the Gold Cup, but here it wouldn't offend my sense of what is right and proper to see the muchloved ex-invalid, Charlie Potheen, possibly partnered by the retiring Terry Biddlecombe, fool them both.
The one pattern race where I can drum up a measure of confidence in upsetting the favourite, is the Arkle Challenge Trophy, where Canasta Lad — the week's best bet' according to the News of the World — is a 6-4 favourite. Now I did well by him at Ascot, but this seems a crazy price for a novice championship and far better value can be had from the 12-1 shot, The Sun.
dance Kid. He interrupted a lengthy winning sequence when slipping after crossing the last at Haydock two weeks ago.
I've decided the Irish are going to do themselves rather well at this year's Festival — not just in the bars — and am completely sold on the claims of Golden Lancer with 10.6 in Thursday's County Hurdle, for three convincing reasons. (1) On his last visit to England he was a six-length third to Lanzarote in the 1973 Imperial Cup; (2) in his last race at Naas he conceded 17Ib and went under by a short head and (3) his stable advertised their raiding skills when Kublai plundered Sandown's Grand Military meeting on successive days last weekend.
Wednesday's visitors will have the pleasure of seeing some of the most familiar names in National Hunt racing at work — the veteran three-mile hurdlers. Their two-mile cousins tend to retire or go 'chasing when comparatively young, but the likes of Highland Abbe, Maid of Lorien and Moyne Royal seem to go hurdling for ever. Naturally some young upstart has presumed to come and take them on in their championship, the £7,000 Lloyds Bank Hurdle, this being none other than the highly-rated Swift Shadovi, who beat Moyne Royal four lengths at Wolverhampton on a previous meeting. Still for sentiment's sake and because he is half a stone better off, I hope the latter will repeat last year's success in the race.
Assets: £52.45. Outlay: £3 to win The Sundance Kid and Moyne Royal, £2 ew Golden Lancer and Charlie Potheen,
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