BETFRED ANNIVERSARY 4-Y-O JUVENILE HURDLE (Grade 1)

The 2nd race on Thursday at Aintree is a very interesting renewal of the Grade 1 juvenile hurdle and basically sees the Triumph Hurdle form taking on the Fred Winter form. The impressive Triumph winner, Ivanovich Gorbatov, will be expected to double up here with the flat track and decent ground expected to suit, and he is priced up accordingly at 11/10. The horses he beat in the Triumph (Apples Jade and Footpad) are next in the betting and the first Fred Winter horse in the list is 4th fav Voix Du Reve, who fell at the last hurdle when looking to hold a winning chance. Fred Winter winner Diego Du Charmil is also around the 10/1 mark but the one who stands out as a value bet is Fred Winter 2nd Romain De Senam at 25/1. He really was nursed round by Nick Scholfield in the Fred Winter, took a wider route than DDC and coming down the hill he was upsides Ruby on Voix Du Reve at the 3rd last, where Scholfield took an almighty pull going into the hurdle. He was then outpaced (or still being nursed?) and looked out of it at the second last as they quickened away and it was only after the last that Scholfield asked him for his effort, whereupon he absolutely flew home and nearly collared DDC on the line.

Looking at the times, the Fred Winter was run 1.6 seconds quicker than standard, whereas the Triumph was 1.1 seconds slower than standard, possibly indicating there is not much between the 2 races in terms of form. The Triumph of course was run off level weights at 11-00 (the filly Apples Jade getting 7lbs, as she does here), but the Fred Winter weights are interesting. DDC carried 11-01, RDS 11-04 and VDR 11-07. If RDS is ridden nearer the pace this time around I think he can be a big player here and 25/1 e/w is a stonking bit of value IMHO.