TOP SPIN
Stayers’ favourite to show he’s Samthing special
SAM SPINNER (nap) is the tops in the Stayers’ Hurdle (3.30, ITV) at Cheltenham this afternoon.
There’s a fairytale aspect to the Yorkshire raider’s challenge – trainer Jedd O’Keeffe beat cancer, while jockey Joe Colliver is on the up after serving time in prison. But the six-year-old’s chance is no fantasy as he is likely to start favourite. Sam Spinner has made great strides this winter – moving out of handicaps to beat today’s rival L’Ami Serge in the Grade 1 Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot over Christmas. There is plenty more where that came from and recent rain at Cheltenham is a bonus.
SAM SPINNER (nap) is progressing at such a rate of knots that he’s a strong fancy to land the Thursday feature.
A promising novice hurdler with three wins last season, the Jedd O’Keeffe trainee has continued his rise to take his form to a new level.
Although beaten at Chepstow in October after eight months off, Sam Spinner and jockey Joe Colliver stepped up in distance for a 17-length demolition job in a handicap hurdle at Haydock 42 days later.
A new mark of 155 tempted O’Keeffe, who beat cancer to preside over a flourishing trainer operation in Middleham, to shoot for the stars and Sam Spinner took in the Grade 1 Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot two days before Christmas.
Having made the running Colliver, who himself has rebuilt his career after a prison term, still had plenty of horse under him jumping the second-last flight. L’Ami Serge came to challenge on the run to the final obstacle, but it was Sam Spinner who rolled up his sleeves for a two-andthree-quarter-length supremacy, with Unowhatimeanharry
third, The Worlds End fourth and Lil Rockerfeller, runner-up in this last year, back in sixth.
There is still untapped potential to draw upon from this most exciting sixyear-old, and, with the rain in the Cotswolds a bonus, Sam Spinner can deliver his trainer-jockey pairing their biggest win. The Yorkshire raider is rubbing shoulders with Yanworth Supasundae and at the head of the betting. Yanworth (below) comes here on the back of an abandoned chasing campaign and Supasundae’s best run came at two miles, but both horses are greatly respected. Penhill captured the 2017 Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle so must enter calculations, along with stablemate and possibly Willie Mullins’ first choice Bacardys. At bigger odds, Wholestone course specialist can go well.