Equinties - Cheltenham Saturday

Gm Equinauts

After landing a gamble in Risk On and brilliant day for the previews yesterday, we’re back for more more more!

The going remains unchanged at good (some good to soft in places) so the mud lovers will have to wait a little longer… but that’s fine for us, it makes the racing easier to punt!

Good luck with your plays, let’s dive in.

HEADLINE ROUNDUP

CHELTENHAM FRIDAY

We may have been treated to small fields yesterday, but some of the performances were highly significant in the grand scheme of the jumps season.

The success that had everyone talking post-race was the one of POTTERS CHARM in the Grade 2 2m5f novices’ hurdle because he was very good.

On pure numbers, he put away a 140-rated VALGRAND easily, though whether the second is a true 140-rated horse is up for debate.

Furthermore, one could argue VALGRAND didn’t like the trip so much and Dan Skelton could already be plotting back from a County Hurdle. Was VALGRAND cheated with!?

Anyway, POTTERS CHARM kept up with VALGRAND’s slick jumping throughout and then turned it on after the home turn to win by a winding 11 lengths.

Willy Twiston-Davies hasn’t hidden his thoughts for this lad throughout this year.

He named the Grade 1 Challow Hurdle as the Christmas target after his success on hurdles debut at Worcester, and that is still very much the plan, though if it’s heavy ground come Boxing Day, he might head to the Formby at Aintree over two miles instead.

Of course, connections have their eyes on the Cheltenham Festival, and they may well take on one of the hot novice hurdles.

Willy Twiston-Davies said: "When you put a 140-rated horse away so easily like that you can’t help but be impressed and he's proved that he’s a Festival horse.

"He’s shown a lot of speed there so I imagine he’s a Ballymore horse."

As for the rest of the day, HYLAND blew his chance of a stab at the National Hunt Chase by winning the three-mile Listed chase.

Henderson knows he’ll be sticking to good ground going forward, so he might have a quiet winter.

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