Andy Holding's Sunday Racing Preview & Tips

JOE FARRELL (best price 9-4) featured heavily in a race which proving to be one of the best novice chase form-line so far this season and on the evidence of what we saw that day, he sets a pretty stiff standard for the others to aim at here this afternoon. Always to the fore at the Welsh venue, Rebecca Curtis’ inmate just didn’t have the class or pace to go with likes of Mia’s Storm or Elegant Escape in the latter stages, but even in finishing a well-beaten fourth, he still ran a set of figures that suggests he’d posted close to a career high performance. Not only did he clock a comparatively faster last circuit in isolation that the one posted by the 145-rated Romain De Senam, who landed the 2m 3f handicap on the same card, the likes of Mr Mix and Captain Chaos have also gone on to prove the value of the achievement with victories in their own right subsequently. Although he faces two potentially two nice chasing types in Billy Bronco and Solighoster here this afternoon, he previous experience over fe3nces and of today’s track (won here last year), might just help tip the argument in his favour.

LEX TALIONIS (best price 5-1) showed a decent amount of grit and determination to land an ultra-competitive handicap at Punchestown last time out and Noel Meade’s charge still appears to be on the right side of the handicapper based on that performance alone. Prior to that sterling effort, the son of Thewayyouare had shown up well in a race that has worked out a treat subsequently (Like An Open Book bolted up at Thurles on Thursday) and with his light weight likely to account for plenty under today’s fairly testing conditions, it’s hard to see the four-year-old not having a huge say in the final outcome. 

THEATRE STAGE (NAP) (best price 6-4) was given far too much to do last time out at Exeter and that monumental task was magnified even more by the fact he was trying to run down the likes of Cave Top and Norse Light, two that have both done on to endorse the form on their next starts respectively. Even in getting eat 10 lengths, Evan Williams’ inmate still ran to decent set of numbers in his own right and hailing from a stable that have just hit a little bit of a purple patch, the five-year-old should go close if given a more polished ride by crack conditional, Mitch Bastyan.