Andy Holding's Thursday Horse Racing Bets

Being able to jump well from a low draw and maintain the gallop was very much the order of the day on day-one of the Roodee festival and given that SHARP DEFENCE (best price 10-1) shares many of those qualities, he looks slightly overpriced here for his in-form trainer. A cracking third to the potential top-class Cliffs Of Moher in a red-hot maiden at Leopardstown on debut, the son of First Defence took four more outings to finally get his head in front, doing so in fairly emphatic style at Salisbury last time out. Out quickly and always on the bunny at the Wiltshire venue, Pat Shanahan’s charge posted quite a fast time into the bargain and with a similarly positive ride looking likely from his favourable inside draw, this progressive colt should be capable of putting up a bold display.

DRAGONS TAIL (best price 9-2) showed plenty of promise on debut at Leicester 12 days ago and he can put that initial experience to good use from his favourable inside draw. Just dwelling slightly as the gates flew back at the East Midland track, Tom Dascombe’s inmate found himself with plenty to do at halfway, but picking up nicely in the latter stages, he came home with plenty of gusto without necessarily troubling the leading pair. Given that the winner, Never Back Down, had the advantage of a previous outing and is reportedly to be Royal Ascot bound, clearly the son of Dragon Pulse ran to a fair standard on his opening gambit and providing he can break a little more alertly and race handy, it hard to see him not being bang in the thick of the action at the business end.

Dan Skelton is going through a real purple patch at the moment with most of his team seemingly thriving on this fast summer jumping ground and COBRA DE MAI (NAP) (best price 11-10), who bounded off the surface at Warwick last time out, is strongly fancied to keep the ball rolling for the Alcester handler. Runner up the time before over hurdles when just nailed in the dying stride by the patiently ridden Anton Dolin, the son of Great Pretender much preferred the luxury of an uncontested lead when running out a wide-margin winner of a novice chase at his first attempt. Dan, certainly not backwards when coming forwards when it comes to spotting an opportunity in the programme book, has identified this race as great chance of exploiting his old mark before the handicapper gets hold of his charge, and providing the five-year-old is ridden in the same aggressive fashion as he was 10 days ago, he should prove very difficult to catch.