Who To Follow On Saturday At Newbury

The Grade Three Ladbrokes Trophy on Saturday is one of the hotly contested handicaps of the season and in the feature event at Newbury we have a strong selection.

Ben Pauling has had a tough time of things over the last few years, but he has started to land some nice winners and on Saturday he fields Kildisart, who looks to have a superb chance.

The eight year old gave one of his best performances of his career at the Cheltenham festival last term in the Grade Three Ultima Handicap, when finishing second in a photo-finish behind The Conditional.

Although he will need to reverse that form in this race with the David Bridgwater trained runner, this time around he seems much better off at the weights.

He was being aimed at the Grand National after that superb run over a staying trip meaning that his trainer knows how good a stayer he is and in this event you need to be just that.

He enters the race off the back of a solid prep run over hurdles when finishing third at Wetherby in the Grade Two bet365 Hurdle behind Cheltenham festival Mares Hurdle winner Roksana and Next Destination for Paul Nicholls.

The contest over three miles also saw him beat the Stayers Hurdle winner Lisnagar Oscar and it looks solid form ahead of him stepping back over fences.

Paul Nicholls has been one of the most inform trainers of the season thus far, having chalked out winners up and down the country and on Saturday he has some big chances to extend his great start.

The Ditcheat handler has been in relentless form over the last 14 days having landed 12 winners from 55 runners which sees him pose a win rate at 21.82%.

In that bunch of runners he has had some nice placed finishers and he will be hoping the likes of Secret Investor and Estelle Ma Belle can do the same where as Next Destination looks to be a great recruit for the yard moving form Willie Mullins' stable.

We could not put up Paul Nicholls without Harry Cobden, who has been in similarly good form of late currently running at a strike rate of 14% with six winners over the last two weeks.

Cobden being Nicholls number one rider has he same chances as the trainer and in the last race of the day where the Ditcheat handler does not have a runner he sits on the Colin Tizzard trained The Russian Doyen who has a live chance as a nice price.

Cobden has a superb record when running at Newbury having five winners and nine places from 27 runners over the last 12 months which sees him have a strike rate of 18.52%.