After a couple of seconds yesterday, we're hoping for our luck to turn on day two of the Festival...
Timeform haven't been around for all 142 runnings of the National Hunt
Chase, but we can tell you that the 143rd renewal is better than most of
its recent predecessors. Back In Focus looks a genuine Grade 1
performer, as evidenced by him winning a Grade 1 last time, while Tofino
Bay was fourth in the same race having won one of Ireland's leading
handicap chases, the Troytown, on his previous start. Those two are
undoubtedly worthy of respect, though at current prices there seems to
be more mileage in backing a horse whose biggest win to date came in a
midweek Leicester handicap.
Buddy Bolero is a brother to a novice chase winner at the Festival (Finger Onthe Pulse, 2008 Jewson) and has looked a similarly good-class prospect on his five starts so far. Off the mark at the third attempt over hurdles, he's won both starts so far over fences, the second being the aforementioned Leicester handicap. That day Buddy Bolero made a laughing stock of an opening mark of 129 in slamming some useful rivals, including a couple of subsequent winners, in a race on soft ground over just shy of three miles. Although this trip is obviously an unknown, Buddy Bolero is certain to stay further than three miles and if he can see out four today must have every chance of emulating his older brother. Check now best bonus for horse racing: bonus racebets
Luck is pretty much a prerequisite in the Coral Cup, in which our second SmartPlay runs, with the run of the race and avoiding trouble in running sometimes more important than a horse's handicap mark. Obviously, we can only guess at the first two factors before the race, but we like to think we know a well-handicapped horse when we see one, and that's precisely what we see in Pendra. Winner Melodic Rendezvous wasn't able to represent the Tolworth form in Tuesday's Supreme, but it looks pretty good on the evidence to date and it's for that reason that runner-up Pendra looks so well treated off a BHA mark of 139. Unbeaten before the Tolworth, Pendra was the only horse to really serve it up to Melodic Rendezvous and therefore even if this race were to be run over two miles you'd fancy he was on a good mark. Throw in the fact that he's by Old Vic (a well-known stamina influence) out of Mariah Rollins (not short of speed, but stayed three miles) and it takes no great leap of imagination to see Pendra improving significantly for this step up to 21 furlongs. With any luck, he'll be right there come the finish.
Hopefully we won't need to be 'getting out' by the time of the concluding Champion Bumper, but it does seem to present a chance to knock it out of the park with one that's been priced up dismissively. On jockey bookings, Sizing Tennessee looks to be the third choice among the Willie Mullins trio, but on form he's number one. His easy defeat of the solid Kandinski at Gowran last time looks to be on a par with just about anything the field has to offer, while his overall profile fits in with what you expect to see of a Champion Bumper type. Sizing Tennessee is by Robin des Champs out of a listed hurdle winner in France and is bound to stay further than two miles, something often required of horses in this normally hectic race. It's certainly something he has on seemingly speedy stable-companion Union Dues and, while Mullins runner number three, Briar Hill, has a fairly eye-catching jockey booking in Ruby Walsh, current prices and tangible form lines point to selecting Sizing Tennessee as a win-and-place bet in the bumper.
Source: betting.betfair.com/horse-racing/cheltenham/cheltenham-festival-smartplays-wednesday-march-13-1-120313-143.html