Andy Holding's Sunday Racing Tips

SANIBEL ISLAND (best price 7-1) faced an impossible task trying to keep tabs on the strong-galloping Yaha Fizz over today’s C&D last time out, but even allowing for the fact that he got trashed 31 lengths by Ed Delany’s massive improver, the five-year-old still recorded a decent speed figure back in fourth. In covering the last circuit in 2.35.9, he still managed to complete the lap time at the Co Kildare venue 6.5 seconds quicker than Dylrow, who took the handicap hurdle on the same card two hours later, so based on those findings alone, there’s no way Gordon Elliot’s charge should be behind that rival in the betting. Prior to that useful effort, the son of Scorpion had run to a decent standard against useful opposition pre-Christmas, and in a race where there appears to be plenty of exposed handicappers, he makes quite a bit of appeal.

ANY SECOND NOW (NAP) (best price 11-10) has marked himself down as one of the best novice hurdlers so far this season and he’s strongly fancied to maintain his unbeaten record at a track that should play into his strengths. Despite being sent off a 66-1 outsider on debut at Navan, there didn’t appear any fluke about the way Ted Walsh’s charge took that competitive and well-run contest at the Co Kildare venue and he went on to prove the doubters wrong by landing the Grade 2 Moscow Flyer Novices’ Hurdle on his latest outing 43 days ago. Always travelling and jumping well at the back of the field, the son of Oscar stayed on too strongly for the heavily-backed hotpot Crack Mone in the closing stages and with the time figure suggesting it was a performance of some repute, the temptation may have been to gear him up for a tilt at the Supreme Novices’ at the Cheltenham Festival. However, discretion has turned out to be the better part of valour as connections see him very much as a long-term project and that policy could well and truly be rewarded by this future chaser further on down the line.

LARRY CAPRI (best price 7-2) appreciated the step up to 3m for the first time when landing a competitive handicap at Fairyhouse last time out and with the time figure pointing towards the race being a strong one of its kind, the lightly-raced eight-year-old may have enough in hand to go in again. A former point-to-point winner, Dermot Mcloughlin’s inmate earned his strips against some fairly stiff opposition in the novice ranks (Yorkhill and Our Duke), so it was no great surprise that he was able to take advantage of a mark of just 101 when conditions finally fell in his favour. Well handled by one of the stars in the conditional jockey ranks, Danny Hand (seen to good effect on Mad Brian last week), the combination proved too strong for subsequent winner Paper Lantern in the latter stages of that well-run affair and with stamina looking the son of Beneficial’s main attribute, today’s stiff track should prove ideal.