Cheltenham Festival Tips: Rhys Williams has a hot ante-post fancy in the Fred Winter

• Promising start to hurdling career

• Looked improved for a visor on the flat last time

• Hot Fuss is overpriced in the Fred Winter

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Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle - Back Hot Fuss

Hot Fuss will be making his handicap debut if getting into the Fred Winter and I think he has the potential to show he has more ability in this sphere than his mark of 122.

He ran to a good level in his sixteen starts on the flat prior to making his hurdling debut at Wincanton where he ran a promising race in defeat. He raced a bit keenly early on and his inexperience showed on the approach to some of the hurdles but he made East India Dock work hard to beat him with an awkward landing at the last not helping Hot Fuss.

Hot Fuss got off the mark next time at Sandown when winning with more in hand than the winning margin suggests but he was a bit disappointing in the Finale at Chepstow on his last start over hurdles. Much of the race couldn't be seen but when he did appear from the fog, his jumping lacked fluency and he didn't seem to quite have the same enthusiasm for the job that he had previously shown.

I expect that was the report from the saddle too given that Tom Dascombe chose to take off the usual cheekpieces and apply a visor for the first time for his prep run for this race on the flat at Southwell last week. He clearly took to the headgear well as he travelled strongly through the race and despite being stuck for room turning out of the back straight, he quickened nicely on the near side to win by 3¼ lengths.

That should have put Hot Fuss spot on for this race and I think he is likely to be suited by tracking the pace in a well-run race and that can bring improvement from him. I'm also hoping that the visor being on for the second time will have the same impact on him that it did at Southwell and that could see him take a step forward on his previous hurdles form too.

There is the slight concern that it may not have that same impact and maybe they could have kept the headgear switch back for this race but I think he's overpriced given his potential for improvement. There's no benefit to playing in the NRNB market in this case since Hot Fuss is going for the race and if he gets balloted out then it's money back anyway and any 16/117.00 or bigger appeals in the standard antepost market.

Now read Katie Midwinter's Cheltenham Festival handicap tips