Senor set for success
AHOY SENOR looks a nice prospect for Grand Nationalwinning trainer Lucinda Russell and can defy a penalty at Hexham.
Only six go to post for the Touring Caravan Sites Always Available Novices’ Hurdle, but you could make a solid case for four of them.
However, none have stronger claims than the very lightly-raced Ahoy Senor, who could take some beating.
A point-to-point winner, he was second on his first start for Russell in a bumper but stepped up in trip on his hurdling debut, he made all the running and had little trouble in beating an oddson shot from the Stuart Crawford yard.
He was sent off 16-1 that day so it will have been a nice surprise for connections to see him oblige so well, and going up in trip again to almost three miles should not stop him following up.
Ben Haslam and Richie McLernon have a healthy 15 per cent strike-rate when teaming up and they have sound prospects of improving that on the card.
The nine-year-old Cash Again has won his last two, with McLernon in the plate at Sedgefield on the first occasion, and he can bring up the hat-trick in the View Yarridge Heights Static Caravan Site Handicap Hurdle.
Haslam claimed 7lb off him over this course and distance last time out over fences and he is 4lb higher, so technically he faces a stiff task having only won by a head.
However, that was his first run following an 86-day break and he is returning to hurdles, where he is possibly still unexposed.
Earlier in the Download The Ne-Bet App Today Handicap Hurdle, McLernon will be wearing the famous JP McManus silks to ride Countister and she is certainly worth watching.
Since leaving Nicky Henderson, she has shown nothing in two starts, but Haslam has found the key to plenty of these old McManus horses who have seemingly lost their way.
At her best Countister was fifth to Laurina in the mares’ novices’ hurdle at Cheltenham in 2018 and on the back of a full year off, she was then third in the following season’s County Hurdle from a mark of 133. She runs here off 115.
Anything Harry Skelton rides for outside stables is worthy of note in the closing weeks of the season and Costly Diamond looks sure to go close in the biowavego. co.uk And Wave Goodbye To Pain Handicap Chase at Southwell.
Gary Hanmer’s sevenyear-old has won her last two in the hands of 7lb conditional William Shanahan, but Skelton has been booked for the hat-trick bid.
She has been hit hard by the handicapper, but looks on a steep upward curve.