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Equinties - a quiet stroll
BGP Capital
January 02, 2026
Gm, Equinauts
The priority was previewing the races yesterday, so before we get too far into 2026, we want to take this moment to thank you for reading and supporting the newsletter.
It’s hard work to produce day in day out, but we love the sport of horse racing and sharing our views, news and bets with you is quite honestly the dream job.
We’re going to make a few changes for the year ahead. The daily news section will continue to be free to all subscribers, but only premium subscribers will have access to our daily stats, bets and big race previews. The pricing will remain the same - as much as a pint of Guinness!
Here’s to a big 2026 and fingers crossed we can find another ROYAL FIXATION bet!
Let’s dive in!
HEADLINE ROUNDUP
LONG TERM THINKING
Yesterdays Trials Day, on paper, didn’t look the best card. Yes, we had some nice horses entered, but the feature handicap chase wasn’t as good as the December Gold Cup, and the Relkeel Hurdle was topped by a 4/7 favourite.
This didn’t stop the punters from flying in as Cheltenham was a SELL OUT yesterday!
This is bigger than some of you may think.
Firstly, attendances have seemingly been on the rise all Christmas. Leopardstown was up, and so was New Year’s Day. Of course, the numbers were always going to be a little bit inflated due to the Christmas period and the nice weather, but are these the first signs that some of Cheltenham/horse racing’s new initiatives to help bring attendances back are working?
Or, is the post-Covid fallout finally starting to decrease a bit, and some punters are returning because they miss the races? Whatever the case may be, over 44,000 people at Prestbury Park for a non-Cheltenham Festival day is bullish. The actual Festival saw those numbers two years ago.
And even if the day did look a bit dry before play, what happened on track was far from that, as we have a few fresh clues towards the Cheltenham Festival. The first came in the Grade 2 Relkeel Hurdle, as KABRAL DU MATHAN was as impressive as he could have been. His jumping was brilliant (bar one freak mistake), he lengthened away like a very good horse under a penalty, and he didn’t show that three miles was completely out of the question.
After his Haydock win, connections said that he could be a Stayers’ Hurdle horse, and they didn’t rule it out yesterday. However, they were a bit lukewarm on the idea, as Dan Skelton said: “We might think about waiting for Aintree over two and a half miles [for the Aintree Hurdle] and waiting a year before going over three miles, but I’m a greedy bugger and might not want to wait.
We can really see both sides of the argument here. The sensible play is Aintree. You know you won’t take on TEAHUPOO, and if you wait one more year for the Stayers’, then TEAHUPOO, BOB OLINGER, and more are one year older and maybe a touch worse. You can then go to the Stayers’ as a mature horse, and have a much better chance. However, we all know what racing is like. So many things can change in six months, let alone a year, and he might not be the same horse this time next year.
Honestly, we’d be tempted to roll the dice. The field he beat wasn’t great, so there is an argument that the form was exaggerated, but he is clearly in serious form, and horses like him have won the Stayers’ before. Case in point, BOB OLINGER last year. He’s a bit of a two-and-a-half-mile horse who can stay three, and this lad looks like it as well. We just think that while he’s in good shape, surely roll the dice with him, but Harry Skelton should be on high alert to pull the plug early if all is not right.
Either way, this was a serious performance from a horse who hasn’t shown his ceiling yet, which is exciting.
A QUIET STROLL
There were a couple more interesting performances from Prestbury Park to discuss, and the first involves Paul Nicholls’ REGENT’S STROLL. Quite simply, has PFN got a plan with this horse, and is it the Jack Richards Novices’ Limited Handicap Chase, won last year by CALDWELL POTTER?
There wasn’t much to be violently outraged about with his run yesterday. He was ridden like the best horse, and his jumping really held up when push came to shove.
He didn’t find off the bridle when required, and that is maybe a small worry, but there is an argument to make that Paul Nicholls has given him three runs in very quick succession, and this could have caught up to him. This, of course, isn’t cut and dry, but it’s certainly a possibility.
Yesterday, he was beaten by the 134-rated MIAMI MAGIC when giving 4lbs away, so there’s a chance the handicapper could drop him by a pound or two. That would have him somewhere around 145, and CALDELL POTTER won last year’s Jack Richards off 146 having been beaten at Cheltenham and Windsor on the way. With the progression and ability that the horse has shown, alongside Cobden’s wry smile in a Racing TV interview yesterday when talking about the horse, Nicholls and the team could just have two eyes on the Jack Richards, and we wouldn’t blame them at all.
There is, of course, the chance that he is soft and he doesn’t like a fight, but he hasn’t been comprehensively tested in this scenario, and he could be a different animal in handicap company.
Of the rest, there was plenty to like about SOLLY’S GOLD in the Listed bumper.
He travelled well through the field, and Sean Bowen never looked in much danger when he asked the question. He was well-backed in the market, and he has a proper National Hunt pedigree that could see him being quite a smart one next season over hurdles.
Who knows, he could even be one for the Champion Bumper? That may be a stretch to far, but we imagine James Owen will try him in the race for experience, and anything is a bonus. Nice horse.
JOSEPH’S BULLISH
And finally, we were struck back yesterday from some comments made by Anthony Bromley to Nick Luck about TALK THE TALK, an unlucky faller in the Grade 1 Future Champions Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown over Christmas.
He said: "Joseph has said he's the best young horse he's ever had for jumping. That's what he's said to us, he's had Grade 1 chasers and he said they were not as good at the same stage of their career.”
He also said that “three big players” have asked about the horse and that "a price was put on the horse and the horse hasn't been sold."
Those are some rather bullish comments about a horse we know relatively little about. As a bumper horse with Stuart Crawford, he ran into Dan Skelton’s useful KADASTRAL, and he smashed up I’M SLIPPY at Fairyhouse in November when the runner-up was fancied by trainer Robert Tyner.
So, his form is starting to work out, and then there are also the comments made by Gordon Elliott about SKYLIGHT HUSTLE, the eventual winner at Leopardstown on December 27th. He said: "The horse travelled like a dream the whole way and jumped like a buck. I thought looking at it live, we were beat, but when I look at the rerun, I'm not sure given the way my lad galloped from the back of the last to the line.
"Jack said he couldn't guarantee he would've won, but he said he wasn't beaten. He really liked him. It's unfortunate for Joseph's horse, but thankfully he's up okay.
"He's a good horse. He's quick, but I think he'll stay further as well. I'd imagine he could come back for the Dublin Racing Festival."
Gordo and Jack Kennedy thinking this about their horse can only be a positive thing for TALK THE TALK.
We didn’t mention SKYLIGHT HUSTLE in our Christmas review because we thought he was a fortuitous winner, and that is not far from the truth. However, maybe we dismissed the race too quickly, because SKYLIGHT HUSTLE was very, very impressive on hurdles debut at Fairyhouse, and connections of TALK THE TALK are, as alluded to above, very bullish.
Could the race work out better than people are expecting, and could Elliott aim his lad at something like the Turners Novices’ Hurdle rather than the Supreme? If so, SKYLIGHT HUSTLE is 25/1 for the Turners and TALK THE TALK is 12/1 in an open Supreme. Those could be two very interesting prices come the DRF, and it could even be worth a small related double on the pair for pennies.
