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Irish Horseracing Betting: Bellewstown Preview

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This evening's Irish meeting comes from Bellewstown. A bumper to bumper eight race, mixed, card to look forward to this evening and it kicks off at 4:15...Darren Skelton marks your card...

The Tally Ho Stud Auction Maiden is a tricky way to start proceedings to say the least. There are five completely unraced animals, each of which could not be ruled out with any confidence so that obviously clouds the issue here somewhat. Ger Lyon's debutant, Highway to Hell would probably be the most interesting of them so is worth a peek in the betting. The selection for now though will be Danehill Spirit. His only run so far, at Sligo, was promising enough but a step up to a mile today could potential unleash the improvement needed to win a contest like this. He has the benefit of the great Declan McDonogh in the saddle so won't be short of persuasion when it comes to the business end of things.

4:45

A fairly low end handicap that should be taken by Rock and Roll Kid. Due to go up 18lbs in future handicaps this horse beat 27 rivals in awful conditions last time in a race he wasn't even handicapped to be in, never mind win. He should pick this race up as well but his price won't be anything to get rich with.

5:15

Another handicap to sink our teeth into. Ask Jack and Invincible Joe stand out on form here but Cochlear is probably the most talented horse in the field (hence the top weight eh?) and should hopefully be able to defy his absence and account for this field today. Tommy Stack's horse has good form on the turf and also polytrack and I expect him to carry on his good recent run by winning tonight.

5:45

Alf Tupper is a horse I have been given many tips for, but seeing as though I could probably own the horse at this stage I couldn't be tipping him today . I'm just going to go straight for Fast Lightning who could give Wayne Lordan a double. He's finished runner up on his two most recent appearances but is a horse moving in the right direction and may still have a certain level of improvement left in him. This handicap is probably where he's at, ability wise, and given the usual luck and breaks in running I'd expect him to get his head into the winner's enclosure today.

6:15

We move onto the jumps now and things should hopefully get a bit easier for us. A straight match race in my opinion, this race should go to either Gay Sloane or Quinmaster. I'm going to side with the first mentioned horse. Noel Meade's horse is improving and after beating Noble Crusader by an easy enough 5 lengths last time, Noble Crusader franked that form with a good win on Monday. Quinmaster is a decent horse but I believe any further improvement from him will probably happen over the larger obstacles.

6:45

Wow...another difficult handicap. If you're clicking the winners at Bellewstown tonight, my advice to you would be to do the lotto later on as well cause Lady Luck definitely fancies you. Ruby Walsh will probably be on the fav here with Colingwood and I expect him to give the horse one of his traditional hold up rides. Not an easy thing to do at a track like Bellewstown so I'm going to side with John Carr's horse Alamiyan. He runs here after a break but the horse has proved that he likes to run fresh. The Carr yard is a favourite of mine too, when the money is done they rarely leave it behind so keep a close on the market here, if there's any money for it at all, my confidence will shoot up ten fold!

7:15

Race number seven and I think The Rall will hopefully add to our impressive selection of winners tonight (hopefully!). Dessie Hughes' 6 year old ran a very encouraging race behind Gay Sloane last time. He was having his first run after a break that day and seeing as though the race is working out so well, it wouldn't be unwise for us to expect that with that run under his belt he can do what Noble Crusader did last week and frank the form.

7:45

Last race of the evening. Bobs Pride is the horse that obviously stands out on form but to be honest I've never been a huge fan of this animal and recent evidence suggests that he's fallen out of love with the game. A lot of these horses are making the switch back to flat after running over hurdles recently - it's also an amateur only race so my advice would be to either cut your losses or hopefully quit while you're ahead. If there was a gun to my head and I had to have a bet, it would have to be a lay of Bob's Pride. I know he's a group three winner, but Leeds united won the League in 1992...It's hard to find an obvious winner to win this race so it's either stay away, or lay the favourite.

Good luck with all your bets!