ITV Racing Tips: A Couple Of Picks From Newbury & Warwick

Although it is not quite a weekend as high profile as last week's DRF, there are some stunning horses strutting their stuff this Saturday and ITV Racing will be in attendance. Billy Grimshaw has two bets, one apiece at Newbury and Warwick, and makes the case here...

14:25 Warwick - Unibet Middle Distance Series Veterans' Handicap Chase

It's a desperate shame the Kingmaker before this has attracted just three runners, although it is easily explained by the nicer ground at Newbury and the fact two novices head for the Game Spirit (more on that race shortly). Nevertheless, as has become the norm of late the Veterans' race on the card has again attracted a decent sized field and it is certainly the most intriguing betting event on Warwick's Saturday card.

0-P-F-0 is not the sort of form you want to see before weighing in behind a horse, but mercifully there was a huge bounce back to something like his best for third at Cheltenham last time out for GRANDEUR D'AME in a handicap and now in veteran company, I think Alan King's charge has a massive chance of getting back in the winners' enclosure for the first time since October 2024. He has been running in some of the biggest and most competitive handicaps around, such as the Topham and the Coral Gold Cup, recently and although he has not been able to go with the winners and placed horses, he will find this much calmer waters.

Usually a frontrunner, I am praying that Tom Bellamy fires him out here and issues a catch me if you can plea to his fellow old stagers. Should he get into a good rhythm around Warwick, he could get away from the majority of this field. The market leader is Le Milos, who is consistent without winning and has a handy 7llbs being taken off his back courtesy of Harry Atkins' claim. He seems to be perennially fancied for this type of race for champion elect Dan Skelton, but I can't see him having the necessary boot for this 2m4f trip, even on heavy ground. 

I can see him drifting before the off and if it's not my pick who becomes favourite, it'll be Paul Nicholls' Knappers Hill. Freddie Gingell will take the ride and the horse has top weight to lumber round, which will be no mean feat on this rain soaked ground, but he has the back class. The issue is he had two years off from November 2023 to November of last year. Clearly a tricky customer to keep right, he will no doubt be tuned up to the minute for this first crack at a veterans' race but he has not looked the force of old to me on his two starts since returning. Should he be held up, as is his usual style, this could also be a surface that makes it hard to make ground so I am happy with our pick.

14:45 Newbury - Game Spirit Chase

I'll be really disappointed if LULAMBA doesn't have more than enough to see off this field, for all he is one of two novices taking on the open company two milers for the first time. In racing and betting arrogance gets us nowhere and one thing I think is crucial to long term success is being able to face when you called something wrong. Watching Lulamba come agonisingly close in the Triumph last year and then bolting in at Punchestown in their big juvenile race, there was no doubting this horse's talent but I could not see him getting anywhere near his peak in this novice chase season if Nicky Henderson pursued a career at two miles.

That impression was only reinforced for me by his debut win at Exeter, in which he pulled easily clear as his odds implied but looked a slow jumper. Going to Sandown, with the railway fences notorious for finding horses masquerading as two milers out, I was licking my lips at the prospect of taking him on in the Henry VIII Novices' Chase. How wrong I was! He glided around Sandown and never looked in a moment's danger, with his suitability to this minimum trip exemplified emphatically. I guess that's why Nicky Henderson has been so good for so long, eh?

Focusing on this race, there looks no horse for the high profile Arkle favourite to fear. He is odds-on as I pen this piece, but 10/11 is more than fair and I wouldn't be surprised to see him go off closer to 4/6. Nicky has never been afraid of chucking his best novices into this race, with Altior and Sprinter Sacre two stars who bagged it en-route to Arkle glory in my time in racing. Master Chewy is the reigning champion and probably rates the chief threat, but he shouldn't be in Lulamba's league on talent alone, so perhaps fellow novice Meetbythesea for JP and Ben Pauling is the danger as the only other potential improver. One suspects, however, a handicap like the Jack Richards - a race for which he is one of the market leaders - could be more on his radar and therefore getting too close to Lulamba here would be detirmental.