Four To Take Away From Chepstow’s Jump Season Opener

The National Hunt season began in earnest this weekend, with Chepstow hosting its annual Jump Season Opener.

Alongside a raft of recognisable names making their seasonal reappearances, we saw the emergence of some potentially exciting prospects to whet the appetite for the remainder of the campaign – which our free horse racing tips we will be covering.

Here at myracing, we have picked out four eyecatchers that it looks worth taking out of Chepstow’s meeting – mapping out their potential future targets below.

Lisnagar Oscar

Rebecca Curtis’ Albert Bartlett fifth Lisnagar Oscar made his chasing debut on Friday in the extended 2m7f Dunraven Windows Novices’ Chase. He travelled powerfully through his race, looking set to score prior to getting the final fence wrong and losing vital momentum – eventually finishing a neck second to the Dan Skelton trained Ardlethen.

Landing a beginners/novice chase should be a formality on that performance, but his connections are likely to be setting his sights much higher later in the season – with the RSA Chase and National Hunt Chase possible Cheltenham Festival targets.

Torpillo

Probably the easiest winner at Chepstow this weekend was Torpillo, who defied topweight to run out an eased-down five-length winner of the Paul Ferguson’s Jumpers To Follow 4-Y-O Hurdle on Friday afternoon.

Conceding twenty pounds to the runner-up – and fifteen pounds to the third – Daryl Jacob’s mount did not have to get out of second gear to score.

A four-year-old hurdle at Cheltenham in a fortnight’s time was nominated as a potential target by his connections afterwards – and on the evidence of that last performance – he looks capable of mixing it at a higher level later in the season, particularly when getting his favoured soft ground conditions.

Speed Company

The Ian Williams trained Speed Company transferred his good recent flat performances into the hurdling sphere when landing the Gent Transport And Warehousing 45th Anniversary Handicap Hurdle on Saturday.

This Allan Stennett owned six-year-old cruised through his race, with a good jump at the final flight allowing him to come home a decisive four and a half-length winner.

He is likely to receive a healthy hit from the handicapper for that victory, but all ground seems to come alike to him and having held a triple-figure flat rating at his peak, he could turn out to be a very useful operator in this discipline.

Races like the Greatwood Hurdle and the Grade 3 at Ascot in December – formerly known as The Ladbroke – may well be on his radar this season.

Champagne Court

The feature race on Saturday’s card was the Grade 3 Cotswold Stone Supplies Ltd Silver Trophy Handicap Hurdle, which was won by Flash The Steel – representing the in-form Skelton team.

Jeremy Scott’s Champagne Court was a real eyecatcher in second though, keeping on well for pressure over a trip that looked short of his optimum.

This Court Cave gelding looks a likely improver once sent chasing over three miles, but his connections can still have plenty of fun still with him over timber before going down that route.

He would certainly not look out of place in any of the Pertemps qualifiers, with the first of those coming at Cheltenham on the 26th October.