Who To Follow At Sandown On Friday

The feature race of the day on Friday is the Grade Two Ballymore Winter Novices' Hurdle and this five runner event sees a star studded line up of potential superstars head to post.

The horse we like is the Alan King trained Valleres for owners Simon Munir and Isaac Souede after the five year old has made a very smart start to his life over hurdles.

Valleres was a decent bumper horse finishing third on debut in February behind the likeable Bothwell Bridge, who has since gone on to be a good looking hurdler.

In October the gelding made his seasonal debut at Wetherby where he landed a nice Novices' Hurdle and has since backed that up last time out when finishing second behind Threeunderthrufive for Paul Nicholls at Ludlow.

He drops back in trip to the distance he won over on debut and if coming on for his two runs so far this term has a huge chance, with more rain the better for this horse.

Dan Skelton as ever, has been in top class form from the word go this term and on Friday at Sandown has a handful of promising runners that should see him in the winners enclosure.

The Warwickshire based trainer has been in fine form over the last two weeks have 10 winners from 43 runners which has seen him pose a 23.26% strike rate.

On Friday his best chance of the day comes in the third event on the card with Alnadam, who has been well backed throughout the week, anther runner that is of some interest for the handler on the day is Falcon Sun.

The four time champion jockey Richard Johnson has a lovely book of rides at Sandown on Friday with his mounts being fairly prominent in the betting.

Johnson has been in very smart form of late running at a strike rate of 22.5% for the last 14 days, having won nine out of his 40 possible rides.

On Friday his big chances across the day seems to be Dandolo Du Gite for Neil Mulholland and Espion in the Pertemps Qualifier for his retained trainer Philip Hobbs.