Spurs looks set to score
COURSE regular Boots And Spurs looks sure to run his race in the sunbets.co.uk Handicap at Southwell.
Scott Dixon’s charge will be having his 11th outing on the Fibresand and while he only has two victories to his name there, the eight-year-old is consistently running well.
He looks to have been finally given a chance by the handicapper, having been dropped 2lb for a run there earlier in the month.
Given he was second to Holiday Magic on New Year’s Day off 77 and he runs off 74 here, subsequent events have proved he faced a tall order that day.
Holiday Magic was running off 86 there and was only narrowly touched off in a red-hot race off 94 last week.
Another boost to his chance is that Luke Morris, who has won on him before, is back on board.
Finale showed steep improvement from her debut to finish second last time out and can break her duck in the sunbets.co.uk Maiden Stakes.
She split horses trained by John Gosden and Ralph Beckett when stepped up to a mile and looked a sure-fire future winner.
Bo Selecta can defy top weight in the 32Red Handicap.
Trained by Richard Spencer, the Dream Ahead colt has run over seven, six and five furlongs, and was spotted flying home over the latter trip.
Up to a mile for his handicap debut, he will surely be better suited to that distance and a mark of 62 looks fair.
Keep an eye, too, on Escalating, who has been off for over 100 days before his run in the Betway Best Odds Guaranteed Plus Handicap but is reappearing off his last winning mark.
Jerrys-back is all about the future but he should still be too good for his rivals in the Watch The Cheltenham Festival On Racing UK Novices’ Hurdle at Wetherby.
Trained by Philip Hobbs, JP McManus bought him after winning an Irish point-to-point easily in October.
It looked significant that Barry Geraghty went to Plumpton on a Monday to ride him on his racecourse debut under Rules, but it was clear to see why he did afterwards.
While the form is very easy to crab, and so was the performance in some ways, he obviously has a good deal of ability as he did plenty wrong but still won on the bridle.
You would like to think he will have improved mentally more than anything for that outing and he should be good enough to win again.