Tuesday Racing Tips: Halo can win the Gold at Southwell

There are no Irish meetings again on Tuesday but there are still three UK cards to look forward to.

Catterick kicks us off before they go at Leicester, and Southwell’s nine-race all-weather card takes us into the evening.

Among our Tuesday fancies is one for trainer Tim Easterby who makes his handicap debut in Southwell’s feature race.

14:50 Catterick - Cerendipity @ 5/1

Sue Smith runs two in this race and while Prairie Wolf, who finished fourth in a much better contest at Cheltenham last time out, is respected, it’s her other runner Cerendipity who could be the one to side with here.

The son of Sageburg has won twice during an 11-race career and there could be plenty more to come over fences. His sole victory over the larger obstacles came at Wetherby in November and a former graded novice hurdle performer was back in second that day.

It was a particularly noteworthy performance as he had played up in the preliminaries and didn’t jump with too much fluency throughout the race.

This suggests he’s got a fair engine and if he can sharpen up his jumping, he should be winning more races. Daryl Jacob was on board at Wetherby and he returns to the saddle here.

A fair third in a better race at Doncaster next time out, that effort came off a 2lb higher mark than his current rating of 117.

Better is expected here and a return to winning ways shouldn’t be ruled out.

15:20 Catterick - Treaty Boy @ 6/5

Look out for Treaty Boy at Catterick as the Stuart Coltherd-trained gelding is set to make his stable debut and he’s a thoroughly unexposed chaser.

The son of Well Chosen only had three starts over hurdles for Rebecca Menzies, where he admittedly showed very little. However, it was a very different story on chase and handicap debut over course and distance earlier this month.

He was always prominent and made smooth progress to take the lead after the second last fence and went on to win by over three lengths, despite being eased down. A 7lb rise feels pretty fair on the evidence of that run and further progress seems likely.

It’s highly unlikely that the handicapper has got to grips with this horse as of yet and it could be a while before they catch up. Coltherd’s seven-year-old is entitled to take another substantial step forward and he could prove hard to beat.

18:00 Southwell - Flickering Halo @ 16/1

Yet to get off the mark in three starts so far, Tim Easterby’s Flickering Halo should benefit massively from the switch to handicaps at Southwell this evening.

The son of Dark Angel improved significantly when upped to 1m3f over course and distance last time out. He kept on nicely to finish third by a length and had to overcome a noticeably slow start.

Lightly raced and thoroughly unexposed, the switch to handicaps could facilitate plenty more improvement. It would appear that his future lies over longer trips but this is a good starting point on his debut in this sphere.

An opening mark of 76 looks reasonable and the best is almost definitely yet to come from Flickering Halo. We’ll certainly learn more about him here but his progressive profile suggests he should be winning races sooner rather than later.