Weekend Preview / Timeform / 27 February 2009 / Leave a comment

Meetings at Newbury, Doncaster, Kelso, Musselburgh and Huntingdon offer plenty for punters to get their teeth into.

Although most of the biggest equine names in the sport will be completing preparations for the Cheltenham Festival at home, this weekend still offers a host of highly-competitive events for punters to tackle in the meantime.

Newbury's meeting on Saturday is headlined by the 17-runner totesport.com Gold Cup Handicap Chase over two-and-a-half miles, for which the sponsors make the reliable novice Hold Em the favourite (currently [7.6] on Betfair). He was fourth behind the mightily-impressive Nacarat in the Racing Post Chase last week, showing improved form despite his stamina seemingly being stretched and runs from the same official mark of 135 this weekend.

His main market rival is Hughie Morrison's Starzaan, not seen since beating this season's John Durkan winner Noland on Scottish Grand National day last April. The Newbury card also features a veteran's chase, which sees Grand National entrant Darkness carry top weight in his bid to make amends for his Welsh National performance, where his jumping let him down.

Doncaster also race, with four Class 2 events on the card including the DBS Spring Sales Bumper, won in both of the last two seasons by Diamond Harry. This year Alan King's Lidar sets the standard, having finished third behind Zazamix and subsequent winner Vino Griego in mile-and-a-half event at Newbury last month despite being poorly placed in the early stages.

The Grimthorpe Chase is the cards' other highlight, in which Grand National hero Comply Or Die makes his first start in blinkers this term, the headgear at least partially credited with his resurgence last season. Eight of the nine runners in the three-and-a-quarter-mile event are entered in either the William Hill Trophy or the Kim Muir at Cheltenham, so this could well be a race for Festival clues.

In the Scottish Borders, Kelso host their biggest meeting of the year, which includes the only Grade 2 event of the weekend in the Premier Kelso Novices' Hurdle. Despite its grade, the race has been farmed by Northern yards since its inception and this season looks a similar story with five of the six entrants coming from such stables. The sole exception is Charlie Mann's Wendel, who has won three of his four starts this season, meeting defeat on his only other attempt at this level behind Medermit and Dee Ee Williams at Ascot. Alfie Flits ran creditably in this Grade at Kempton last week, but the extra two furlongs and soft ground will likely be against him.

Huntingdon and Musselburgh are the venues for Sunday's jumps action, the former staging a Class 2 handicap hurdle in which Hills of Aran appears for the third consecutive weekend having placed in Grade 2 events on both of the previous weekends (in the Rendlesham and National Spirit Hurdles respectively).

Musselburgh's feature is a 0-130 handicap hurdle, in which Along The Nile (2nd, raised 3 lb subsequently), Joe Jo Star (5th) and Los Nadis (pulled up) all re-oppose from the Scottish County Hurdle recently held at the course.