Newbury Saturday Preview - 08/02/19

We have a competitive novice hurdle to kick us off and Nicky Henderson's promising Chantry House is likely to be in warm order.

He put this up along with Shishkin as his two star juveniles for the season and both have looked potential superstars.

Chantry House has been beating all the right horses in the build up to this, defeating Edwardstone & Shan Blue by 3l+ when landing a Warwick bumper before getting the better of Stolen Silver on hurdling debut, who has since followed up in a graded event.

The forecasted conditions mean he will be facing a sounder surface than previously but he should have the class edge.

At a bigger price L'air Du Vent cannot be underestimated. We are hoping the bookies write him off after a lacklustre display at Cheltenham as this gelding still has a big future and will relish the good ground. He looks like he will be a better chaser but his yard don't win many bumpers and he bolted up in one last April.

Second up is a 9-runner handicap and it is another Colin Tizzard horse which takes the eye.

Ainchea comfortably defeated whatswrongwithyou on good ground at Sandown last season who subsequently beat Ok Corral and Rockpoint in his next two races. He reached a rating of 139 and Ainchea is in off 133 here, making him look very well-handicapped.

He was backed into 7/2 from 6/1 from when sent off favourite last time out but he made a mistake when travelling sweetly and lost momentum. The trainer has stated he will improve for racing this season after such a long lay-off and his brother improved vastly when upped to 3m, so further progress is anticipated.

This selection doesn't need much explaining, Altior is easily the best horse in this race on a going-day and he has never lost a race on good ground.

Henderson is in fine form and this is his second start since under going wind-surgery - everything points to another winning performance.

Native River has won this race two of the last three seasons and is likely to be very hard to beat, but at 1/3 there isn't much value and we are giving the legendary Might Bite one last chance to bounce back to his brilliant best.

On their day there isn't much between these two and Might Bite is in receipt of 6lb plus he gets his favoured good ground. Henderdon's red-hot form gives optimism about his chances and at 13/2 there is e/w value.

This is one of the hottest renewals of the Betfair Hurdle for a long while and we have picked out two e/w chances with 6 places on offer.

Firstly, if Barry Geraghty can switch off Never Adapt in the early stages he has a cracking chance of picking them off in the latter stages of the race. They are likely to go a good-clip here so we are hoping Barry settles in the rear before taking it up late on.

Second up is Highly Prized, who looks a crazy price at 20/1. If owned by JP this horse would be half the price having bolted in by 8l last time out and Jonjo O'Neill Jr is an interesting booking by Emma Lavelle, who certainly knows how to land a nice handicap.

Evan Williams has his yard in good order and this relation to Paisley Park is likely to be suited by this step up to 3m.

They didn't hang around over hurdles for long so the larger obstacles has always been his target and he now drops into a handicap for the first time off 128, which looks a very attractive mark.

The horse that beat him at Aintree is now rated 144 and a line can be put through his recent outing as he travelled up nicely before being outpaced by sharper horses over an inadequate trip.

Olly Murphy has this hot-prospect entered in the Champion Bumper so he has to be winning this given the strength of Cheltenham's flat race this season.

The son of Jeremy had them all going like the clappers when cruising home by 16l on debut and on that performance should have the beating of these; despite facing different conditions.