ITV Saturday Preview From Warwick And Kempton

One of the big races of the day at the Warwick is the Grade Two Novices Chase and we like the look of Hold The Note.

This Mick Channon trained six year old started his life over fences with a solid third at at Ludlow in a race he learnt a lot from and was in behind some smart jumpers.

He went to Kempton last time out when he was travelling lovely and looked sure to make a big challenge before a horse fell in front of him ruining his race and he was pulled up.

He did nothing wrong than have bad luck and with a better time in the running he should be in the mix.

The feature contest at Kempton on Saturday is the Silviniaco Conti Chase and in this small fielded Grade Two we like the Tom Gretton trained Kauto Riko.

This horse was superb on his seasonal debut in December when out running his odds of 100/1 to finish a staying on second behind Top Notch in the Grade Two Peterborough Chase.

This nine year old has been underestimated his whole career with the trainer not being the most well known in the racing world but now nine years of age he could be finding his prime and is worth another gamble at decent odds.

Another superb contest on the card at Warwick is the Ballymore Leamington Novices Hurdle and in this Grade Two we fancy Harry Senior for Colin Tizzard who holds a substantial amount of form.

This season the six year old has ran four times racing modestly at Chepstow on his hurdles debut but since then has been highly progressive picking up some serious form.

He went to Exeter next and finished second in a race that saw the fifth, fourth, third and first all go on to win next time out which is just remarkable.

He stepped it up a notch in a Class 3 at Aintree and finished second again this time behind another superb novice hurdler who is unbeaten and beat Fiddlerontheroof who has since gone on to win a Grade One.

Finally he got off the mark in a Maiden Hurdle back at Chepstow on Welsh Grand National day enjoying the step up in trip and now gets an extra two furlongs which should suit.

Olly Murphy is a trainer who suffered his first blip of his career recently but now is back amongst the winners and flying again and we expect him to land another winner with Notre Pari in the Listed Lanzarote Hurdle.

Barry Geraghty on board is a huge plus with the jockey riding to a fair standard recently an this horse has just gone from strength to strength this season.

He finished fourth on his seasonal debut at Fakenham and looked to need the run but has since been second at Market Rasen before winning nicely on his handicap debut at Aintree.

He goes up eight pounds for that but if coming on again has to be respected.

One of the big feature contest on the ITV card is the McCoy Contractors Civil Engineering Classic Handicap Chase over the marathon trip of 3 mile 5 furlongs.

The Ben Pauling yard are back having winners and they field Le Breuil in this event with a handy seven pound claimer which the eight year old being top weight will need.

The gelding has to be feared off the back of his only run at this trip at the Cheltenham festival in the National Hunt Chase where he went on to land the contest in staying fashion.

The penultimate contest of the afternoon for us is War Sound for trainer Philip Hobbs and this 11 year old although a veteran still holds bags of ability.

He has raced twice this season with a below par effort on seasonal debut at Aintree finishing seventh at 10 but he did win that contest the year before.

He was much better last time out finishing fifth of 12 runners at Ascot in Heavy conditions and should be much better for both those runs.

The last selection from Warwick on Saturday comes in the Pertemps Network Handicap Hurdle Qualifier and Tedham although being a hard horse to follow holds bags of potential.

This six year old needs to win this to be able to get up to the handicap mark to then go to the Cheltenham festival and after some poor runs and having some bad luck in running this is his big opportunity.

Last time out at Haydock he just ran out of steam seeing a horse fly from nowhere to get up and take the contest, if being on song he has a huge chance.