Newbury and Newcastle provide some top-quality action on Saturday and it’s going to be a cracking day’s racing.
The Gold Cup takes place at Newbury, while Newcastle hosts the Grade 1 Fighting Fifth Hurdle.
A big clash between two of last season’s best novice hurdlers awaits us in Newcastle’s feature race and the Gold Cup should be a thoroughly competitive affair once again.
Here we take a look at some of the best races of the day and pick out three strong selections that could be worth following.
Saturday’s tips
- 2.10 Newcastle – Mystical Power
- 2.25 Newbury – Queens Gamble
- 3.00 Newbury – Henry’s Friend
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2.10 Newcastle – Mystical Power
The market indicates that Nicky Henderson’s star juvenile from last season, Sir Gino, and two-time Grade 1 novice hurdle winner Mystical Power should have the race between them.
Willie Mullins trains this five-year-old and he’s arguably the best National Hunt bred horse in training. The son of Galileo and Champion Hurdle winner Annie Power is bred to compete in races of this level and he was excellent last term.
Henry de Bromhead’s Slade Steel outstayed him in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, but he still ran a cracking race to finish second, indicating that he truly belongs at the top level.
Back-to-back successes followed at the Aintree and Punchestown Festivals, where he got the better of Gordon Elliott’s very talented performer Firefox on both occasions. A year older than his main rival, he can take full advantage of that fact here.
2.25 Newbury – Queens Gamble
Harry Derham’s Queens Gamble was a useful performer in bumpers and has carried that potential forward since switching to hurdles last season.
Unbeaten in three starts over timber thus far, she makes her handicap debut off a mark of 130 here and a big run is expected.
She was last seen winning a Listed novice hurdle at Taunton in December and that form has worked out particularly well.
Both the second and fourth have won a couple of times since and the former scored in Listed company at the Punchestown Festival.
Connections have always rated her highly and Derham has been keen to run in this race for quite some time.
It would be a surprise if she’s not at least a few pounds better than her current mark and she won’t give up her unbeaten record without a fight.
3.00 Newbury – Henry’s Friend
Henry’s Friend managed to win twice over hurdles and was particularly impressive when winning his maiden by 20 lengths.
Ben Pauling’s gelding went on to finish second in a Grade 2 novice hurdle a couple of starts later and returned to winning ways at Doncaster in the spring.
It wasn’t until he went over fences that the seven-year-old really took off however and he was particularly progressive last term.
Grade 2 success in the Reynoldstown at Ascot was the peak of his achievements and that performance indicates he has enough class to feature in this sort of race.
He probably wouldn’t want the ground to be too testing, but won at this meeting on soft ground last term and shouldn’t be too inconvenienced by similar conditions here.
Connections were happy enough with his seasonal reappearance here over hurdles and Pauling said that the run put him ‘spot-on’ for this.
Saturday’s tips
- 2.10 Newcastle – Mystical Power
- 2.25 Newbury – Queens Gamble
- 3.00 Newbury – Henry’s Friend
*all odds correct at time of writing and subject to change
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