Andrew Balding sends one runner on the 610-mile round trip to Newcastle

Liam Bramall

Published: March 24, 2025

Horse racing is in Liam's blood and his biggest passion is jumps racing. He can often be found at his favourite tracks; Chepstow and Cheltenham in the Autumn when the National Hunt action kicks off. In his own words: "I'm often referred to as a walking form book, a trait which comes in handy from time to time. My proudest tipping success to date was landing a whopping 682-1 accumulator at Epsom."

Simply getting a horse to the races is a costly endeavour these days and you can forgive connections for focusing on more local tracks. That’s not the case on Tuesday however as Hampshire-based handler Andrew Balding is set to send just one runner to Newcastle.

It’s a 610-mile round trip from his Kingsclere base and connections won’t want to come home empty-handed. Take a look at our free tips page for daily content across British and Irish racing.

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CLAIM

6.15 Newcastle

Turquino made an excellent impression when winning on debut at Southwell three weeks ago and he looks like the one to beat on that evidence. Plenty went wrong throughout the race yet he still went on to score by a comfortable margin and there should be loads more to come.

Slowly away that day, he made some smooth headway before hitting traffic and having to wait for some racing room at a key stage. He looked very green at one point and hung badly left between the last two furlongs, before the penny dropped and he went clear nicely.

Trainer Andrew Balding has done particularly well with his runners at Newcastle so far this year and is operating at a strike-rate of 33 per cent. His 21 runners have yielded seven winners and a further three of them have placed, meaning 10 of his 21 runners have finished in the first three.

It’s hard to find something to take Turquino on with here, as all four of his previously raced rivals have loads to find. The two unraced runners are complete unknown quantities and the most likely outcome is surely another win for Balding’s four-year-old.

Turquino

Analysis

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