It’s the final instalment of Matthew Sutcliffe’s Cheltenham Ante-Post series and he goes out in style with a 40/1 tip for the Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle, which takes place on day one of the meeting on Tuesday 11th March.
Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle – Torrent 40/1 1pt EW 4 places
The final Cheltenham ante-post selection comes in the form of TORRENT, who was a bet for the column over C&D when finishing an eighteen lengths third to East India Dock in the Triumph Trial earlier in the season.
While he might not possess the potential of some of those to the fore of the market, I thought some of the Irish contingent have been harshly assessed by the British Handicapper with marks ranging between the mid-high 130s, and given three of the last four winners of this contest were rated 122, 125×2, the consistent Torrent can’t be discounted to run his proverbial solid race providing he sneaks in off 121.
With form figures of 12123333 over hurdles including two visits here, he rates a confident each-way angle to fill the frame and while he has eighteen lengths to find with Stencil on their last outing, a subsequent 9lbs swing in the weights aids in that respect and on a collateral piece of earlier form with East India Dock, he’d only have a length to find with Stencil who tops the market at the time of writing.
James Owen’s charge looks set to give Lulamba a bold challenge in the Triumph, so even accounting for the fact Nigel Hawke will have been protecting Torrent’s mark of late, those large deficits behind East India Dock shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as a negative.
Though held up in rear in races that haven’t particularly panned out from that position, those tactics are exactly the requirement for one to fare well in this trappy contest, with the largely keen going juvenile field going hard early on, playing into the hands of either those thrown in, or favoured by running their own race in rear and capitalising on the pace collapse.
He brings a plethora of experience already and was ahead of horses rated 128 last time out so I actually think there is room for improvement off 121 for win purposes. He won’t mind which way the ground
turns up, and there’s every chance that this race could fall into his hands in spite of his lesser
potential than some.
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