Horse Racing Tips: Ruby Walsh's best bets for Irish Lincolnshire at Curragh

We’re sponsoring the Paddy Power Irish Lincolnshire (19.15) at Curragh on Friday so the lads took a good look at the runners and riders on this week’s From The Horse’s Mouth podcast. Paddy was joined, as always, by the legend Ruby Walsh and our top trader Frank Hickey to separate the wheat from the chaff and deliver their best bets for the big race.

Paddy’s tip – Njord

The Irish Lincolnshire was always one of the races I thought it would be great if we could sponsor, so I’m over the moon. It’s just a shame we can’t be down there presenting the prizes and enjoying what would have been another great day at the Curragh.

Either way it’s great to be involved and this is a proper, big handicap with big syndicates trying to target these kinds of races. There’s big pots there, but they’re very hard to win.

You can see by the betting it’s going to be 7/1, 6/1, maybe 5/1 at the off, but it’s wide open as you’d imagine. Shane Foley did give a good mention to their horse Tauran Shaman when he spoke to us on the podcast this week.

However, I think Patrick Sarsfield looks the obvious one and he will probably go off as favourite, but I’m going to go for Njord. The best form is on soft ground, so that’s a bit of a worry but it could be quite well handicapped and I like it as an each way. It’s probably going to be about 10/1, 12/1 so worth a punt.”

Ruby’s tip – Saltonstall

This race is wide open. You could make a case for Current Option, who I think will be the likely favourite, one of Ado McGuinness’s. His form is best over seven furlongs, though. He won the Sovereign Path at Leopards Town, he’s a seven-furlong winner at Thirsk before that in July last year.

Bashiyr, one of Dermot Weld’s, he’s two from four. He won at Gowran and won at Galway when he won over a mile, but he was disappointing, I thought, on his handicap debut at the Curragh on Champions Weekend behind Bopedro when he was 6/15.

I think it’s an open race, but it often does throw up a winner with a bit of age on his side, and for that reason, I’m going to go with Saltonstall who’s guaranteed to get the trip and will be a big price each way.

Frank’s tip – Nebo

We’re going a mad six places on this one which is very generous so each-way tips will be out in force. But, the one I like, being the old softie that I am, is Nebo for Tom Hogan. This horse had excellent form as a two-year-old. He was placed in four Group 2s as a two-year-old as well as winning a Group 3.

As a three-year-old the wheels really came off. He went off at 9/2 for the free handicap at Newmarket, disappointed, then finished last in the Guineas. He switched to Tom Hogan, didn’t show a whole pile till his last run on turf at the Curragh in a listed race when he was only beaten a length and a half.

He got eased up, he wouldn’t have won, maybe beaten by no more than a length. He’s running off a mark of 97 here and I think he’s one for an each-way bet and he would be a great boost to the yard after a difficult week.

To hear this chat in full, as well as more of the best horse racing chat out there, check out the full episode of this week’s From The Horse’s Mouth wherever you get your pods from or on the widget below.