With the dust settling on a spectacular Cheltenham Festival last week punters will need to wait a little while until the Grand National festival sees the stars emerge again, but for now we focus on Monday’s action which comes from three meetings. There’s action at Southwell, Taunton and Navan on Monday and we pick out some of the best bets here…
Fresh from landing Martin Pipe glory at last week’s Cheltenham Festival, Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero will head to Southwell this afternoon attempting to land more glory and the pair will saddle the hugely popular White Rhino in the 15:35 at Southwell, and that contender has been napped by eight tipsters. One of those tipsters is The Punt from the Racing Post, who sits second in the naps table, and is hoping White Rhino can record a third win on the bounce. A 6/4 chance, at the time of writing, the seven-year-old has recorded wins at this track and Wetherby in his last two starts and off a hugely inflated mark he will attempt to make it three wins on the spin.
Remaining at Southwell, Henry Oliver’s Coastguard Station is very well fancied to claim glory an hour earlier in the 14:35 contest and the 7/4 market leader has been napped by three tipsters for today’s event. The seven-year-old will have the burden of top weight in today’s race, but shaped with promise last time out when finishing second at Doncaster and off a 2lbs higher mark today has to be considered a huge player.
We head to the West Country for the other popular nap of the day, as the Olly Murphy-trained Doctor Ken is a warm 6/4 favourite for the 15:15 at Taunton and has been napped by five tipsters. Another with the burden of top weight, Doctor Ken has been in superb form of late notching up one win and one second this season, and the likes of Garry Owen for the Daily Record fancy Murphy to strike gold on Monday.
Paul Nicholls grabbed a brace of wins at Cheltenham last week and he is sure to unleash his big guns at Aintree in a few weeks time, but the Ditcheat handler will head to one of his local tracks this afternoon, Taunton, to try and claim more success. Newsboy of the Daily Mirror is the form tipster at the moment having landed three winning naps in a row and he has napped the Nicholls-trained Ioupy Collonges to land success 13:40 race.
Currently topping the naps table at the moment with a profit of £20.86 is Postdata from the Racing Post and the classy tipster can pull comfortably clear at the top of the standings if the 8/1 shot Joke Dancer can land the 14:35. Sue Smith’s ten-year-old has been struggling of late and was last seen finishing fifth at Wetherby, but has been eased 5lbs in the handicap, so has to be given a chance if recapturing his best form.
For those punters looking to Navan’s afternoon card for their best bet of the day could side with Rory Paddock from the Jersey Evening Post, who has napped the 9/2 chance Smooth Player in the 13:50, while on the same card Dean Kilbryde from the East Anglian Daily Times has napped the well-fancied 6/5 favourite Landrake in the 14:55 race at Navan.