Tony Calvin: Black looks a Rayvin good bet in Sandown's Imperial Cup

Pricing a race up, on your own from scratch, is never easy. And even full-time odds-compilers, with the back-up of colleagues and external tissues and, dare I say it, the odd bit of privileged information, often get it badly wrong.

This is why most firms are very reluctant to be first up over the betting parapet these days, and why prices for certain races usually take an age to appear.

For example, prices for last Saturday's 3yo listed race at Lingfield won by Haalick didn't start to come through until well after 4pm on Friday afternoon, even though the declarations were finalised at 10am on Thursday morning.

Mind you, the race did house some hard-to-price unexposed 3yos - hence, you can understand the layers' trepidation and caution to a degree - and it did see a massive springer in the market in the shape of Abe Lincoln, who started at 11-4 having been available at 9-1 early doors, only to get no sort of run and beat only one home.

Bullet dodged but we will leave the "is odds compilation a dying art?" debate for another day - to be honest, I would have got stuck in now, were it not for a hospital appointment this afternoon - but there were certainly some strange prices bandied about when betting opened on Sandown's Imperial Cup on Monday afternoon.

And none more so than the firm who priced up Affaire D'Honneur at 10-1.

Yes, I know the "aftertimer" comments will come in thick and fast now he is trading as short as 9-2 in places and 6.611/2 on the exchange, but it did surprise somewhat that anyone could make him a double-figure poke after that run in the Betfair Hurdle. Little wonder the 10s disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Yes, I know he has gone up 1lb for being beaten 13 lengths in that Newbury race - and he could be a quirky sort, too - but of course the bare form doesn't tell even half the story.

The standing start did for him at Newbury and he lost his race there and then, but the way in which he came home, after getting even more detached in the run, suggests that this lightly-raced sort must be very competitive off a mark of 133 if all goes more smoothly, and the stiffer track should suit, too.

If you have got the bigger prices, then you are sitting very pretty, but clearly for our purposes that ship has long since sailed.

Trying to find a runner in the weekend ante-post races, let alone a winner, is hard enough of late - we saw that in the Grimthorpe last week where there were 20 five-day entries but only six went to post - but we soldier on.

It looks like the four at the top of the market are set to go - Affaire D'Honneur, the dangerous-looking and well-backed For Good Measure off a mark of just 130, Clondaw Warrior and Betfair Hurdle runner-up Starchitect - but there doesn't look to be too much juice in their prices now.

I am going to eschew the sexier profiles elsewhere and recommend a small-stakes each-way bet at 14-1 on Rayvin Black with the Betfair Sportsbook, and a win-only bet at 17.016/1 on the exchange, with Clayton and Ch' Tibello the last two struck off my short-list.

Fingers crossed that he is allowed to take his chance - he is also in the County Hurdle next week - as he just looks the most solid betting conveyance in the race to my eye.

Regular readers - indeed everyone in the country, not least Kelso racecourse - will know that weather forecasters are the worst chancers going in any line of work, but apparently there is plenty of rain about for the next 48 hours and that should suit Rayvin Black just fine.

He is a dual course and distance winner in testing ground and in the form of his life, as evidenced by a five-length defeat of Melodic Rendezvous in the Kingwell Hurdle at Wincanton last time.

You could easily rank that performance as a career-best - and a fair bit better than his current mark of 149 - and this game front-runner looks sure to give us a run for our money. Providing ifturns up, that is.

If he doesn't get into an early burn-up here - as he did with Sternrubin when putting up his only disappointing effort this season at Ascot in December - then he looks sure to go well.

His Sandown form figures over 2m (he finished seventh over 2m4f) read 1212, and that first second-placing came when he finished a 33-1 second to Ebony Express in this race last year.

There are also markets available on the EBF Final and the Mares' National Hunt Flat race but I am happy to leave those for the weekend.

Right, off to see the surgeon.

Spare the knife, this time. Pretty please.

Recommended Bets

Back Rayvin Black at 17.016/1 on exchange and 14-1 each way with Betfair Sportsbook