SATURDAY 12th november

 

 

I think SCRIPTWRITER is the bet here, a horse trained by Milton Harris who won this race with Knight Salute last season. The strong favourite at the time of writing is Blueking D’Oroux who is trained by Paul Nicholls. He has strong form in France but when it comes to the breeding side of things, it does not look that strong. Paul Nicholls has a decent enough record in this race but he will have to have a very smart horse on his hands to beat the 102 flat rated SCRIPTWRITER. This horse joined Milton Harris from Aiden O’Brien on the flat and was a good winner of a maiden last September. He then went on to run in two group 3s behind the classy Coroebus and Piz Bazzle. SCRIPTWRITER is also very well bred and Milton Harris has made a very shrewd buy here. He is as shrewd a trainer as you will find and given how high his flat mark was, he could have a smart horse on his hands. He will need to improve his jumping from his debut over hurdles at Sedgefield, but that should come naturally with each start. WIN.

 

 

A bit different to last season when we were on BONTAAY and she won at 2/1 and we were on at 6/1. It looks like stronger opposition this season with the Nicky Henderson horse and Oliver Sherwood (a horse marked up in my horse to follow e book..but still). BONTAAY has not been seen since winning this race very easily last season as a 4 year old but even so, you still have to expect significant improvement as a 5 year old and the fact she is 2 from 2 at Cheltenham and 3 from 3 in her career, tells me she is a very good horse. She has been primed for this race and although she gives 4lb away, she is not in this race to make up the numbers. I think given she is unbeaten at the course she is way overpriced and while others focus on the Henderson horse, we will lap up the outstanding value. E/W.