Andy Holding's Tuesday Racing Tips

It’s been well-documented Harry Whittington has endured a pretty retched winter through one thing or another going wrong, but on the evidence of recent results, the tide appears to be turning and in the shape of POLDARK CROSS (best price 3-1), the Sparsholt handler has a decent chance of adding to the list of positives.

An Irish point winner in heavy ground, the son of Shantou made his rules debut in a quite a decent novice hurdle at Wetherby back in November and he shaped with considerable promise to finish a creditable runner-up to the useful Fern Hill after just getting tired after the last. Sent off joint favourite in a similar event at Huntingdon a month later, the six-year-old just didn’t have the tactical speed around the Cambridgeshire venue for a horse like Paddy’s Motorbike, but he at least kept on quite well to finish a respectable third in a contest which came out quite well on the speed figures. Indeed, the subsequent exploits of the winner, second and fifth, suggest it was quite a strong race of its kind and having come out the other side with a fairly lenient rating of 115, it is hoped that he can exploit such a mark at some stage during the remainder of the season and today looks a decent opportunity to put that theory to the test.

PAY THE PIPER (NAP) (best price 9-4) ran out a comfortable winner of what looked an above-average maiden hurdle by Sedgefield standards on his rules debut a month ago and even though he’s up against Castle Rusden, who has shown smart form in two victories over hurdles already, Ann Hamilton’s gelding is more than capable of holding his own based on what he did on the numbers first time off the shelf.

A point winner when with old connections in Ireland, the son of Court Cave was seemingly up against it on his opening salvo at the Durham venue, but have travelled easily the best throughout, he readily found the necessary turn of foot late on to turn away his two main market rivals. Some may argue that the form might be suspect as the 2-7 favourite, Camprond, disappointed, but the crux of the matter is Philip Hobbs’ southern raider just didn’t have the pace to cope with the speed shown by the winner and the overall time figure bore testimony to that view. Having exhibited the sort of speed to win over a relatively sharp two miles, and stamina to score over three miles between the flags, it’s safe to assume he should appreciate today’s stiffer track, and hailing from a stable that have gone about their business in a pretty decisive fashion this season (Nuts Well and Tommy’s Oscar two other notable performers), the Cumbrian handler looks to have another potential top-notcher in her midst.