Horse Racing Tips: Rory Delargy’s best bets for Saturday’s ITV Racing Action

Rory runs the rule over Saturday's action at Newbury and fancies the nice-priced Ahoy Senor at 14:50.

By / Horse Racing Tips / 12 months ago

Rory Delargy’s ITV Racing Rips

13:40 North Lodge
14:15 Brentford Hope
14:50 Ahoy Senor
15:25 Master Chewy

*All prices are bang up to date with our snazzy widgets, while odds in copy are accurate at time of publishing but subject to change.

13:40 North Lodge

North Lodge won in Grade 2 company as a novice, and produced better efforts in defeat on his last two starts, most recently when third to Three Stripe Life in the Grade 1 Mersey Novices’ Hurdle last April. An absence since then is an obvious concern, but Alan King has been making all the right noises about him and I’d be surprised if he’s not 100% straight for this return. The form of all of his races has proven solid, and he looks good value here.

Rock My Way needs a mention having shaped much better at Cheltenham than he had done on his return, and he’s dropping to a favourable mark. He’s respected with conditions likely to suit, and he might be the one to give the selection most to worry about.

14:15 Brentford Hope

Brentford Hope has always had huge talent, but while he became frustrating for Richard Hughes, he has really taken off for Harry Derham, and he was mightily impressive in winning a competitive handicap over C&D last month.

In that contest, the front-runners – himself included – went off too hard, but Brentford Hope maintained the gallop in impressive style to win by 16 lengths. Raised to a rating of 133 for that facile success, he remains fairly treated based on his high-class flat form, and this race was pencilled in as a target some time ago by the erudite Derham.

Under Control has been all the rage in the ante-post market, but I still believe that Brentford Hope will be hard to beat even after the handicapper had his say for his latest romp. The one caveat is his jumping which was largely slick last time, but he did make a significant early mistake and needs to be error-free to land the big pot he’s capable of.

14:50 Ahoy Senor

Ahoy Senor is an open book by now, but his flaws – obvious enough though they are – tend to be overplayed, and it’s a shame that the only mistake he made in the Gold Cup put him on the deck, as he was loving taking the field along and looked to have plenty left to offer. He lost little in defeat by Shishkin at Aintree, where his jumping was fluent, and he has never impressed on his return, so a failure to complete at Wetherby in the Charlie Hall is not that much of a worry.

Corach Rambler was similarly in need of his return at Kelso before running a much better race at Haydock last week, and I’d expect a big improvement from Ahoy Senor here, remembering how impressive he was when landing the John Francome Novices’ Chase here two years ago, winning that Grade 2 by 31 lengths after jumping very well on the whole, if a little out to his right. He is bidding to join the likes of Mill House, Arkle and Burrough Hill Lad who have carried 12 stone or more to victory in this historic contest, and he has the class to prevail if his jumping passes muster.

15:25 Master Chewy

Master Chewy won well at Aintree in November and showed improved form despite being beaten three-parts of a length by Djelo last time, the loss of three fences in the straight, not helping his cause. He was the guts of 15 lengths ahead of Real Stone that day and meets that rival on identical terms with both going up in the weights. I see him confirming that form, which was franked when Djelo won again at Newbury on Friday.

Saturday’s racing tips

13:40 North Lodge
14:15 Brentford Hope
14:50 Ahoy Senor
15:25 Master Chewy

*All prices are bang up to date with our snazzy widgets, while odds in copy are accurate at time of publishing but subject to change.

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