ITV Racing Tips: Ready Freddie?

Happy New Year again, to all our customers. Another cracking Saturday of live action courtesy of the ITV cameras awaits, with Newcastle and Wincanton providing the magic. Sandown was scheduled, but the rains put paid to that. Wincanton must survive a Saturday morning inspection, too. Fingers firmly crossed...

Great news - Sat, 8am UPDATE, courtesy of the Racing Post; 

'Wincanton's fixture on Saturday has been given the go-ahead, with the meeting making up ITV Racing's schedule alongside Newcastle.

The Somerset track was due to hold an 8am inspection but conditions were deemed raceable before then, with the ground described as heavy, soft in places on the chase course.

Four races each from Wincanton and Newcastle, where the going is soft, heavy in places, will be shown on ITV4.

Each race at Newcastle will start ten minutes later, beginning with the 11.55, which will go off at 12.05.

The first six races at Wincanton will start five minutes later than the published race time, beginning with the 12.20, which will now go off at 12.25.'

I hope you all had a pleasant and enjoyable festive period, and that the coming months provide us with lots of thrilling sport.

Here's the revised version of what we can expect on Saturday afternoon; courtesy of the ITV website.

Newcastle - ***NEWCASTLE JUMP 10 MINS LATER THAN PUBLISHED***

13.40 THE QUINNBET ACCA BONUS NOVICES’S HURDLE 2M 1F
14.15 THE QUINNBET BEST ODDS GUARANTEED NOVICES HURDLE 2M 4 1⁄2 F
14.50 THE QUINNBET ACCA BONUS HANDICAP CHASE 2M 4F
15.25 THE QUINNBET.COM HANDICAP HURDLE 2M 4 1⁄2 F

Wincanton - ***WINCANTON RACES JUMP 5 MINS LATER THAN PUBLISHED***

13.30 THE VIRGIN BET DAILY EXTRA PLACES HANDICAP CHASE 2M
14.05 THE VIRGIN BET EVERY SATURDAY MONEY BACK HANDICAP HURDLE. 1M 7F
14.40 THE VIRGIN BET BEST ODDS DAILY HANDICAP CHASE 2M 4F
15.15 THE VIRGIN BET DAILY PRICE BOOSTS HANDICAP HURDLE 2M 5

13.30 Wincanton - Fast Buck @ 5/2

Fingers crossed then for a soggy Wincanton - and stamina is going to be key. We've got a fairly out-of-touch band of experienced warriors here, so who's going to bounce back?

I'm chancing that it might be Fast Buck, fairly highly-tried of late and who has yet to reproduce what we know he's capable of since having wind surgery in August. He won just over a year ago on heavy ground at Lingfield off 119 (122 today), and at 10 he's surely too young to have lost his mojo?

Small stakes for me - an unconvincing bunch.

13.40 Newcastle - Konfusion each-way @ 9/1

A soft-ground (forecast) novice hurdle and a proper trainer of winter-game horses in Sue Smith. Not run for a long time, 543 days to be precise, but what I do like about his prospects, each-way, is the booking of Nick Scholfield.

An admirable, top pro of many years' standing, Nick rides this and Tara Halls in the next for Sue, and on the two occasions Konfusion has seen a racetrack he ran very well in a bumper and then a novice hurdle at Southwell.

The trainer owns the horse too and represents for me a sporting each-way shout, to once again modest stakes.

14.05 Wincanton - Fourofakind @ 9/4

Red-hot trainer Harry Derham - 53% strike-rate in the last 14 days - and a horse looking to recapture his spring form. Fourofakind had a wind op in May, and has run twice since. After a little freshen-up break of 41 days he can now perhaps show us his true colours and ride the coat-tails of his handler's brilliant current form.

It's only a little contest and with respect some smaller trainers will be slightly easier to combat than the P Nicholls types, so this for me is a good opportunity. Regular pilot Paul O'Brien rides.

14.15 Newcastle - Taras Halls each-way @ 11/1

Part two of the Sue Smith/Nick Scholfield show. A 6-yr-old novice hurdler, a gelded son of the great stayer Yeats no less, and very lightly-raced. Took a bumper first time up around 12 months ago and left Lucy Wadham for the Smith yard in November.

Two very ordinary runs have followed, the last of which saw Scholfield in the plate. He's evidently (fingers crossed yet again) thought capable of better, and Nick can perhaps extract an each-way tune at what looks a fair price.

14.40 Wincanton - Georges Saint @ 5/2

Forecast heavy ground. If in doubt - call Venetia! Ms Williams saddles Georges Saint and the French-bred dotted up last time at Fakenham on this kind of testing surface. Up 7lb, so the handicapper's had his/her say - but that was a career-best effort and at 8 years of age these are the absolute prime moments to capitalise upon and savour.

Some of the bigger yards oppose and there's £13-grand to the winner - which I hope will be Charlie Deutsch's mount.

14.50 Newcastle - Empty Nest @ 5/2

A Class 5 handicap chase, and a relatively in-form challenger in Empty Nest. Mark Walford trains, and Jamie Hamilton rides. Went down under this jockey by a neck at Catterick 18 days ago off a mark of 88, and is up just a pound for that cracking effort.

It's not the deepest-looking contest, being in-form is a massive plus, and that sterling Catterick effort was a career-best to date. At six, he's got plenty of time for continued improvement, and his talented Dad's last Ascot Gold Cup win (Yeats) was achieved aged eight.

15.15 Wincanton - Individualiste @ 7/4

The top trainer at Wincanton teams up with a brilliant-looking claiming 'find.' P Nicholls and Freddie Gingell combine with Individualiste, and the combo sauntered to a 16l win at Taunton on admittedly better ground just a week ago.

Another French-bred, he's won on soft and run respectably on heavy, so hopefully his recent career-best form can be maintained and not blunted. Runs here instead of another Taunton engagement on Monday, which I take as a positive since he clearly enjoyed the air in that other part of Somerset.

15.25 Newcastle - Yealand @ 9/4

Path of least resistance here with Yealand. Staffordshire handler Jennie Candlish trains, and Sean Quinlan is on board. Neither are in hot form but this one can perhaps change all that.

After three very ordinary spins he begins life in the handicapping ranks and this surely won't take a phenomenal performance to win it. Class 5, an ordinary-looking group, and plenty of the Johnny Nash about some of them (there are more questions than answers).

I'm unashamedly going for a sound trainer/jockey combo with bags of experience of taking such contests down the years. Once again, it's worth mentioning - the stakes will be less than heroic.

ITV Racing tips, from Betfred Insights.