Cheltenham Tips / Wayne Bailey / 11 March 2009 / Leave a comment

After a cracking day for the Irish on Tuesday, Wayne Bailey rates the horses from across the water on Wednesday's card...

Irish eyes are smiling... The luck of the Irish...

It was cliches galore on day one as the Emerald Isle got off to a great start in the 2009 Cheltenham Festival where the UK team only managed one winner. Before you go correcting me on Wichita Lineman, the horse was trained, owned and ridden by Irishmen so yes - I'm claiming that one too! It was classic stuff from Tony McCoy and his ability to get the most from a horse is becoming legendary.

Yesterday's article produced a small profit of £19.00 (all backs and lays recorded to £10 stake at Betfair SP) so let's see if we can improve on that a little as the festival approaches the half-way stage:

Mikael D'Haguenet has been running some fantastic races in Ireland since arriving from France, and I expect him to have enough in the tank coming up the famous hill to hold off Karabak and Diamond Harry in the Ballymore Novices' Hurdle. Willie Mullins' five-year-old has made it four wins from as many races since landing in that yard and Timeform have him 6lbs clear under today's conditions.

Master Minded looks bombproof in the Queen Mother Champion Chase and there's not much point opposing. However, I recently saw Big Zeb in the flesh during a stable tour of Colm Murphy's yard and I have to say that the eight-year-old looked awesome. He should manage to take one of the three places up for grabs if running to form.

Mullins also has a hot favourite in the RSA with Cooldine, and his form at Leopardstown was franked by Forpadydeplasterer's big win yesterday. I'll admit that he's going to be hard to beat and I risk looking silly here, but his price of [2.0] is far too short and I'm going to click pink today.

Tony Martin's poor run of form continues and he still hasn't found a single winner in 2009. Psycho is the best horse on paper in the Coral Cup, but considering his trainer's recent recent record, I'm happy enough to lay the place at roughly [2.94].

The 2009 bumper is one of the most competitive in years, and a good case could be made for Sicilian Secret, Rite Of Passage, Dunguib, Quinola Des Obeaux, Quel Esprit and Shinrock Paddy. That's a pretty long shortlist! I'm going to take the safer option and use Betfair's place market and back Dunguib. The Phillip Fenton trained six-year-old has won two bumpers this season and was especially impressive last-time-out at Navan in difficult conditions. At the time of writing, his place price of [3.0] looks a little too high.

Summary:

Back Mikael D'Haguenet (2:05)
Lay Cooldine (2:40)
Back Big Zeb in the place market (3:20)
Lay Psycho in the place market (4:00)
Back Dunguib in the place market (5:15)

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