3.35pm Cheltenham Tips & Betting Preview 12/11/2015

3.35pm Cheltenham Saturday 12th December

Free Tip: Lily Waugh at 8/1 Each Way

Race Details

Race Time: 3.35pm Meeting: Cheltenham Day: Saturday 12th December 2015 Full Race Name: OLBG Mares’ Handicap Hurdle Class Two

Betting Preview

As always we have a fiendishly competitive handicap to end the Channel 4 racing programme and with so many likely runners it will take some solving.  Listening to trainer can be the quickest way to lose your money, but we remember the high regard Martin Keighley had when we spoke to him for Flementime (10/1), and although she is yet to live up to expectations, she is still pretty decent. After winning her bumper at the first attempt she never really went on from there and although she did add an odds on success at Southwell and four places, that is not really the return connections were hoping for. After an aborted campaign over fences she returned to hurdles at Lingfield when second to Rock Of Leon when she may have hit the front a bit too soon, and to add insult to injury she has also been put up three pounds but she is not unduly burdened this afternoon and with a perfectly timed challenge could yet pounce to win this afternoon.

As always Nicky Henderson has his string in good form and he will be hoping he can get another win out of the enigmatic Broxbourne (5/1), a stayer on the flat and a winner last time out over three miles at Aintree. She is a distance winner after seeing off Wild Bill at Fakenham, but may find some of these have a bit too much toe for her when the chips are down, though if it turns in to a war of attrition then her stamina could yet be brought in to play.

Anthony Honeyball is yet another up and coming young trainer worth keeping on our side and he runs our selection here in the shape of Lily Waugh (8/1). With three miles perhaps proving a bit too far for the six year old daughter of King’s Theatre, she has been dropped back to around this sort of trip with great success and wins at both Wincanton and Taunton which have seen her rise in the handicap by another eight pounds today, though we think she had enough up her sleeve to suggest she may be able to shrug that off with David Noonan getting on particularly well with her and looking to land the hat trick.

With no course and distance winners in the field we are left with Peter Bowen’s Ron’s Dream (8/1) who is a course winner – and a distance winner, if you see what we mean. A daughter of Kayf Tara, connections will be hoping for a suicidal early pace as she stays a lot further as proved by her win last time out over close to three and a quarter miles here, though whether she has the pace to live with these on good ground over shorter is the big question. The excellent Sean Bowen rides (a future Champion jockey on our view), and should get his fractions right but expect to see her appear late on the scene as the front runners begin to cry enough up the Cheltenham hill.

To end the day there is an old racing saying that they don’t give weight to donkeys, which means we cannot just ignore top weight The Govaness (6/1). Trained by Dr Richard Newland who does a remarkable job with his small string, she is weighted to dead heat with Broxbourne on April form here and needed the run when third on her return to action over further at Haydock, but she looks a little too high in the weights to win this and may struggle to keep tabs on some of these when the pace is turned on late in the race.

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