Events / Graham Cunningham / 12 March 2010 / Leave a comment Free £25 Bet View Market

Spring is slowly creeping through and the Cheltenham song will surely reach its rightful position at the top of the hit parade any day now. All the signs are positive as the countdown to next week's Festival continues, but Racing UK analyst Graham Cunningham is looking to hit the target before then with the best angles on this Saturday's card at Sandown

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The Esher faithful could be forgiven for nicking the old terrace favourite chant when they see how tough the Sandown card is this Saturday and I can think of many a punter who will be treading very carefully for fear of heading to the Festival on a downbeat note.

Still, the temptation to try and get things off to a flyer before the biggest jumps week of the season is hard to resist and a few thoughts are worth noting on a valuable card which climaxes with the Imperial Cup at 15:05.

First, the opener at 14:00 looks just about impossible, with any number of progressive young horses doing battle for a race which is absolutely nailed on to produce a host of good winners over hurdles and fences during the next 12 months.

Tread with care is the best advice from a punting viewpoint, but Aberdale represents the same team that landed this with Albertas Run three years ago and however he fares at Sandown this handsome gelding is well worth keeping an eye on for the medium and longer term.

Second, various angles suggest themselves in the Imperial Cup itself. Once again, the short list for this historic handicap is a long one and I suspect I will be sorely tempted to place lay both Pistolet Noir and Press The Button in the belief that what they have shown in novice company gives them plenty to find against these grizzled rivals.

I doubt I will be laying Qaspal in the win market as taking on any horse with his upwardly mobile profile tends to be fraught with danger.

AP McCoy has been living on spartan rations all week to do the weight on this rapid improver. But there are others with just as much to recommend them and anyone who backs Aather at [9.0] or bigger with a view to trading out at [4.0] in-running could be onto a very fair trade.

Alan Fleming's gelding is lightly raced and improving rapidly based on his easy success at Ffos las and a fine second when very easy to back for a strong handicap at Cheltenham on Trials Day.

The layers who helped force Aather out in the market for that race got the money in the end, but they won't need much reminding that he travelled like a very well handicapped horse indeed until worn down close home.

It seems fair to expect Aather to travel with real purpose again under restraint from Timmy Murphy here. It's hard to be sure whether he's good enough to go one better from a 7lb higher mark. But it isn't hard to suspect he will catch the eye of the in-running players if his recent rate record is any guide.

Lastly this week, it's hard to be dogmatic about the right way to approach the valuable bumper (15:40) which concludes Channel 4's Sandown coverage.

That said, I will certainly be keeping Lifestyle onside. Nicky Henderson's mare was untroubled in breezing clear of a subsequent winner at Ffos las on her debut.

However, I suspect I will be looking to be against Mizzurka. Bob Buckler's mare has won her last two and has McCoy aboard for the first time, but the combination of a penalty and faster conditions than she has been used to suggest she might well be forced into a minor role this time around.

Tags: Aather, Aberdale, AP McCoy, Imperial Cup, Lifestyle, Mizzurka, Pistolet Noir, Press The Button