Andy Holding's Thursday Racing Tips

Not that many count in this maiden hurdle and it provides LA TEKTOR (NAP) (best price 6-4) with an ideal opportunity to get off the mark. Runner-up in a bumper at Limerick back in December, Tony Martin’s gelding went into hurdling debut largely unfancied, but in running a huge race to fill out the same position behind the well-fancied and more-experience Voix Des Tiep, he gave out positive signals for the future. Holding every chance as the field turned for home 12 days ago, the son of Proteckor kept on willingly all the way to the line but the bottom line was he just didn’t have enough pace to cope with the winner who found a nice turn of foot when in mattered most. Shaping like he requires further, today’s sterner test over 2m4f should suit and with School Boy Hours’ confidence likely to be fairly low following two recent falls, the eight-year-old rates the percentage call.

There are certain jockeys that do insist on going around the inside even though the conditions should be telling them to race out of the swampy ground and that was very much the case where NEW AGE DAWNING (best price 6-1) was concerned at Lingfield last time out. Bidding to make all the running, Tom Scudamore thought he was doing the right thing on David Pipe’s gelding in charting a course around the paintwork at the Surrey venue, but it soon became apparent that his weighing room colleague, Gavin Sheehan, was a good deal more switched on in searching for less-poached ground out wide on his main market rival, Dominateur. As it panned out, the son of Stowaway did his level best under the circumstances to try and overcome the impossible and, as a result, his performance deserves upgrading. Although today’s race is no gimme up against the likes of Kingsplace and Deise Aba, the five-year-old chestnut has done more than enough in his two starts under rules to suggest he should be competitive at the very least and with the step up in trip to three miles likely to suit also, he rates a solid each-way alternative to the ‘big two’ in the betting.