Andy Holding's Monday Racing Tips

VIRNON (best price 11-4) just found one too good for him here over a week ago, but as that wasn’t the first time Sarah Humphrey’s inmate had gone well at the Midland venue, it’s a pretty safe bet that he’s likely to perform to a fair standard on his return visit and that makes him a decent proposition at his morning odds.

A winner on the Flat here back in 2016, the son of Virtual also has a fair record over fences at the Rolleston track as form figures of 2F12 testify and for a good deal of the three-mile journey eight days he looked like he was about to add another victory to his roll of honour. Travelling best of all throughout, he couldn’t quite go with the patiently-ridden Elcair De Guye in the home straight, but as the pair pulled well clear of the rest in a decent time figure, his overall performance is still worth recognising as easily one of his better ones of late. Moreover, he covered the final circuit two seconds quicker than one of his main rivals today, Silent Steps, who had the luxury of running half a mile shorter, so based purely on those numbers, the nine-year-old rates the strongest of the pair down the front end of the market and should be backed accordingly.

HAASAB (NAP) (best price 15-8) may have got beaten last time out at Sedgefield but he still came out of the race with great credit and he’s strongly fancied to regain the winning thread.

Setting out on to the second circuit at the Durham venue, Laura Morgan’s gelding still had plenty of his plate and although he looked the most likely winner having made up a good deal of ground in the final mile, his effort to get the eventual winner took its toll late on. That said, his final lap sectionals worked out not only the best in his race, but also better than the one won by the 120-rated Evander in the following novices hurdle over the same C&D, so based on those findings, the son of Sakhee might still have a bit up his sleeve even off his revised mark of 106.