Cheltenham Festival Antepost Tips: Sam Turner has a 16/1 ante-post pick for the Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap

Stylish Sober lives up to his billing
Munsif could prove a marvel for canny Byrnes
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Sober in line for more Glory days

Thank you for returning to check out the eleventh edition of my Cheltenham Festival Focus and it was good to see last week's headline advice, Sober Glory, strengthen his claims for the Supreme Novices' Hurdle with a scintillating success at Newbury on Saturday.

The layers responded to the 27-length success by cutting the six-year-old to as low as 14/115.00 with the Sportsbook content to price the selection at 16/117.00 following his rout.

It was difficult to line up the performance with the hurdle races that took place throughout the card as the conditions deteriorated as the afternoon wore on, but the way Sober Glory simply eased clear of a very useful type in Kadastral from the second last was taking.

The Hobbs & White-trained gelding returned with a slight cut to his right-fore, but there didn't appear to be too much concern post race and fingers cross he will make the line up on the first afternoon of the festival.

Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle: Munsif a marvel at 16/1

Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle
Cheltenham Festival, Tuesday March 10, 14:20

It is 'qualification season' so strap yourselves in for all sorts of fun and high jinks as a multitude of connections strive to engineer a favourable mark or complete the requisite number of runs needed to make the final line up for one of the festival's many handicaps.

I've never really understood the clamour to run in a Cheltenham handicap as the prize money is often fairly modest for a meeting of its standing; for instance last year's County Hurdle winner Kargese collected just over £60,000 - the same as Kelso's Morebattle Hurdle hero Cracking Rhapsody earned.

Anyway, it will be forever thus for as long as the National Hunt season revolves around four days in March and the ingenuity to make the final 22 for the Fred Winter has been as acute as ever this season.

Saratoga shot to the forefront of the ante-post market, alongside Ascot scorer Winston Junior, with an eyecatching third start at Naas in the opening Rated Hurdle, a race which has provided four of the last seven winners of the day one handicap for juveniles.

Many onlookers were left with the impression this was another sizeable step forward for Saratoga with the soon-to-be deposed Mark Walsh at pains not to reach for his whip until deep inside the final furlong.

The layers wasted little time cutting him to 5/16.00 ante-post favourite for this race as his conqueror, Highland Crystal, extended her winning sequence to three with a workmanlike display.

Back in third was the easy-to-back Munsif who himself shaped with credit despite being keen early on and appearing to find the attritional conditions alien to him.

A three-time good ground winner on the level last term when trained by Roger Varian, the Sea The Stars gelding also showed up nicely in the Fairyhouse hurdle last month won by Proactif and that is the strongest-run juvenile event my colleague Andy Bate has recorded to date this season.

Clearly Munsif is being primed for a spring handicap with Cheltenham probably the first one on the agenda and another encouraging aspect of his performance at the weekend was his hurding which earned a RaceIQ rating of 8.0.

That is the third successive run over obstacles that the 120,000gns purchase for Tattersalls Autumn Sales has gained lengths over his rivals at his hurdles, while he also won a 14-runner Doncaster handicap at the St Leger meeting which augurs well if he tackles 21 other rivals in this event on March 10th.

It goes without saying that trying to find the winner of this race a month before it is scheduled and without crucial data such as a handicap rating makes things a little tricky, but Irish trainers have won the last eight renewals and Munsif has the flat class and now the required hurdling experience to make some appeal at 16/117.00.