ITV Racing Tips for Boxing Day 2025 – Best Bets from across the tracks

As is tradition, on Boxing Day a festive feast of racing takes place up and down Britain and Ireland. Every race will be available to watch somewhere, but the ITV cameras hone in predominantly on Kempton with a race apiece thrown in from Aintree and Wetherby. Billy Grimshaw has a couple he likes on the cards and makes the case here...

13:20 Kempton - Kauto Star Novices' Chase

Although I believe Kitzbuhel is the most talented horse in this field, I am not keen to back him at sub 2/1 considering we have seen him lose his cool before racing on big days when crossing the Irish Sea. He is five going on six and could well have turned a corner over the summer, but even in a smart chase debut you could see the fizz with which this horse goes about his day and in a race this deep, that question mark is too stark. 

Salver is another I am happy to take on at prohibitive odds given he won't get his preferred soft ground, for all that his pummelling of his rivals at Sandown last time out was a marked step forward. Before that he was not disgraced 10L back from Lulabma over a trip too short and he is certainly not without a squeak, but the odds compilers have made him untouchable from a betting point of view. The last horse under 3/1 as I pen this preview in the market is Wendigo for Jamie Snowden, who would be my pick were this only a three runner race. He stays longer than the mother in law and clearly has a wonderful thirst for a battle, but a sharp track like Kempton may just catch him out and leave him with too much to do.

At the prices there is a standout each-way play in my opinion and that is Paul Nicholls' BLUEKING D'OROUX with Harry Cobden in the plate. He is 12/1 in places while Kitzbuhel and Salver, horses he beat over hurdles over 2m5f at Sandown to wrap up last season, are a quarter of that price. Perhaps they have improved past him, perhaps they have shown more over fences so far, but that price discrepancy is just plain wrong. Cobden will get his mount jumping out in front or close to it from the word go and while the big concern is if he will stay, if you are ever going to stay three miles off the front end around Kempton on decent ground is the place to do it. He has a good chance of victory in my view and a brilliant place chance so he is the bet to kick off our busy Boxing Day. 

13:35 Wetherby - Rowland Meyrick Handicap Chase

At Kempton and Aintree respectively there are prohibitively short priced favourites in the big hurdle races in the shape of Sir Gino and Mydaddypaddy who I fully expect to get the job done, and at Wetherby I am also very keen on the favourite in their big race and thankfully he is not odds-on (yet)!

The field for the Rowland Meyrick is the smallest we have seen this century, which is very disappointing for the folks up at Wetherby, but I reckon they will at least be treated to a good winner in the shape of KONFUSION. A bona fide front runner, he could very well be unbeaten in three so far this season were he not to have stumbled and lost his rider on his penultimate start at Haydock. He made amends for that error by bolting in off a featherweight at Newcastle just over a month ago last time out and he looks a very progressive chaser for the newly formed Sue Smith and Joel Parkinson training partnership.

He kicked off his season in style here, making all on November first in style in a handicap chase with an excellent exhibition of jumping. The exciting thing about this lad is he has not seemed to be in trouble yet over fences as nothing - bar an obstacle - has got close enough to challenge him. This is undoubtedly his toughest test yet, but 136 is definitely still workable and although some of his rivals are more highly tested, he has the most upside. The horse I fear most is Knappers Hill for Paul Nicholls and Freddie Gingell, who returned from a long break to run with credit for fourth at Haydock recently. If he's taken a big step forward from that he will be the big danger over Our Power and Marble Sands, who are no mugs but maybe at their peak rather than improving.