‘Connections are extremely shrewd’ – Thyestes horse backed from 22-1 into 17-2 👀

The field jump in the 2019 Thyestes Chase

The Thyestes Chase takes place at Gowran on Thursday and it’s a prestigious handicap. It looks set to be a hugely competitive renewal as is usually the case. One particularly interesting candidate is the subject of a substantial market move over the last 24 hours.

Knowing how competitive the race is likely to be makes the substantial market support for the horse particularly notable. Having been available at 22-1 on Tuesday afternoon, the horse in question is currently priced at around the 17-2 mark. Check out our free tips page for daily content across British and Irish racing.

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2.50 Gowran Park

Espanito Bello (17-2, William Hill) has had just six starts over fences so far. The best of these two efforts came at Naas and Navan in December 2020 and February 2021 respectively. Hugely impressive at Naas when winning a Beginners’ Chase over 2m3f by 18 lengths, at the expensive of Coko Beach and Longhouse Poet. Coko Beach turned the tables to defeat Espanito Bello by four lengths in a Grade 2 over three miles next time, which is still a fair effort.

Michael O’Sullivan takes the ride and 5lb off his mount’s burden. He gained his first Grade 1 win this season, aboard Marine Nationale for the same connections. Trainer Barry Connell is having a fine season with 12 winners from just 39 runners. This 31 per cent strike rate from such a small pool of runners proves that connections are extremely shrewd.

No one can say for sure what we can expect from this unexposed chaser and on the evidence of his best chase form, he could be well-treated here. I suspect that we haven’t seen Espanito Bello over fences in over a year is because his owner/trainer has a target in mind and he’s happy with this mark of 140. The volume of money suggests this could well be that target.

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