Race Time: 3.00pm Meeting: Sandown Day: Saturday 6th February 2016 Full Race Name: Betfred Mobile Heroes Handicap Hurdle (Grade Three) Class One
As three-mile handicaps go this looks one of the better ones at first glance, with any number of classy horses engaged but who can make it in to the frame?
Nicky Richards is currently in the middle of a great season and in Baywing (9/2) he has a regular winner who may not have finished just yet. Now a seven year old, he has raced four times so far this season, winning every one of them, and defying the handicapper’s grip month after month. His first victory at Carlisle in November was off a rating of 89, and his last at Haydock off of 125 which takes some doing, though he will have to improve again to shoulder yet another ten pounds today. It looks likely that Brian Harding will ride him for the seventh time today, and we wish them all the best of luck, but he did look as if he was reaching his limits last time out, and may need freshening up before he can win again.
Medinas (9/1) has been diverted here from other targets and despite top weight and a long lay off is still the class act in the race. A seven length beating of Cole harden two races ago at Newbury is head and shoulders above anything the others can even dream of, but eleven stone twelve after over four hundred days off is surely asking just a bit too much even if the Alan King yard can do little wrong in the big races of late.
Another horse perhaps surprisingly sent here is the Paul Nicholls trained Ibis Du Rheu (5/1), a half brother to then ultra classy Saphir Du Rheu and this labelled with high expectations. The five year old has place twice this season at Newbury and Kempton but finally steps up to the sort of trip his breeding suggests will suit, and although he has to reverse Kempton form with Yala Enki on nine pounds better terms, that looks very much on the cards to us.
Talking of Yala Enki (5/1), two wins out of three this season have been well deserved but we note his one failure, when fifth to Baradari at Haydock, was when he tried this sort of trip and weakened badly, and we just cannot understand why they have sent him here as opposed to easier options over two and a half miles.
Lastly but not leastly, it is only a matter of time before the Jonjo O’Neill horses hit form with a vengeance and we feel that Join The Clan (16/1) will be the first of many winners. He has needed both runs this season to put him straight and ran better than expected when third to Bristol De Mai at Leicester last time out and now he is cherry ripe and with Patrick Cowley taking off a very useful seven pounds, and with probable improvement and what looks like his ideal conditions, he is the value each way call for us this afternoon.