Antepost Horse Racing Tips: Back a cosmic display from Rodney at Newbury at 7/1

• Alan fired in 16/117.00, 12/113.00 and 6/17.00 winners in two columns

• Two bets for Saturday at Newbury and Kelso

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Kelso - 14:20: Back Florida Dreams @ 6/17.00

A fairly wet week looms large at the Borders' track for one of Kelso's best fixtures of the season, but from a punting perspective, the 14:20 looks the best stop for this week's column.

Florida Dreams has been holding his form ever so well this term and, quite unusually for a Nicky Richards, the trainer has gone for an aggressive campaign rather than wrapping his runners in cotton wool.

While without a victory, Florida Dreams finished second to Hartington at Carlisle off 125 in November and backed up that fine run with an excellent third at Haydock on the Betfair Chase card, behind Dan Skelton's Kabral Du Mathan. It's fair to say that old Kabral is a quite a handy performer, as he won at Haydock off 140 with 12L up the cuff, and subsequently triumphed in a Grade 2 by 5L.

Florida Dreams' latest run was on 1 February, when sixth in a Pertemps Qualifier, but his jumping was far from A1 and again he was ridden from way off the pace.

It wasn't the tactics that proved his undoing, more perhaps the quick-ish turnaround as he'd previously raced on Boxing Day and his fifth run of the season. His trainer perhaps was visited by a Christmas ghost of Greystoke for an uncharacteristic spell of five in a season. 

Off a good mark, the mark of 123 with the dice rolled will do for me, as for this 0-150, the best rated horse in terms of entries is 133. Go figure.

Newbury - 15:47: Back Rodney EW @ 7/18.00

The line from Rodney Trotter in Fools And Horses concerning Duke the Labrador saying, "I have a GCSE in maths and art, not a GCSE in Pork", is one of my favourites, and Kerry Lee's Rodney, going great guns at the moment, has progressed from GCSE's to A Levels and now bigger things.

I probably get tired of, as do my dear readers, mentioning double-entries, but Rodney is entered also for the novices' handicap chase an hour before. With Charlie Deutsch already booked, however, hopefully Lee will go for the bigger pot and prize with 45,000 sheets to the winner in the Greatwood Gold Cup.

Everything Rodney has done since disappointing at Warwick earlier this season has been excellent. Of course I backed him then - getting stuffed from a mark of just 109 - but he has collected three wins on the spin, two by big margins, and has earned his stripes, stepping up in trip well.

He may have scored by a small margin at Ludlow last time, but he was worth far more for the win, perhaps with an eye on the assessor taking another swipe, and a 5lb rise is fair as he was always very comfortable against Toothless, with Rodney travelling all over him when moving into second some way out and it was just a matter of when not "if".

His jumping needs to improve a little, which I guess is a little risk for the stiffer fences at Newbury, but he travels strongly and on the whole his technique is good. The odd one he can flick and brush through, so with experience, he can get better.

I've thought of him as a Saturday horse for a while and, if he wins the 45K here, the funds could go towards more lawnmower engines from Alfie Flowers.

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