Tony Calvin Antepost Tips: 33/1 Wonderwall is worth a nibble at Sandown on Saturday

• Look for horses with track form at Sandown

• Read TC's case backing Wonderwall

• Watch Coaching Carter Episode 2

The Dublin Racing Festival dominates this weekend, but I am very much inclined to leave that two-day meeting alone until the final fields are known.

You can read my thoughts on both days at the end of the week - the four/five-day confirmations are out on Tuesday in Ireland after the noon deadline - but we have plenty of decent domestic action to go at before then.

Sandown and Musselburgh are on ITV this Saturday, with the Scottish track also on the box with Leopardstown on Sunday.

Saturday going report

The going at Sandown is currently soft, good to soft in places, on the hurdles track, and good to soft, soft in places, on the chase circuit (as at Monday 2.18pm). There is next to no rain forecast this week.

Musselburgh is good to soft (though they haven't updated the BHA site since 9.16am on Monday) , and the main weather site I use has around 7mm on Wednesday, but dry from there on in.

It's not top-class racing at Sandown, though there is the 100k Grade 1 Scilly Isles on the card at 14:35 (I was actually surprised they got seven entries) and the four other ITV races are handicaps, which suits me just fine. The three ITV races at Musselburgh are also handicaps, too.

None of the races at either track were early closers, so the odds-compilers were starting from scratch. Prices were understandably slow to come through on Monday afternoon, hence this opening ante-post column is a touch later than usual.

I have been doing a couple of ante-post columns every week for a while, and hopefully I will be back later on Tuesday (or Wednesday morning) if time allows.

Right, let's crack on then with what we have currently got. And we now actually have all eight UK ITV races to go at, but I'll just focus on two here for starters.

Sandown Saturday 14:35 - No bet

I would expect the Scilly Isles' numbers to hold up well, as none of the six home entries have alternative engagements this week. Emmet Mullins' Corbetts Cross is currently in a 2m5f Grade 1 at Leopardstown on Sunday, but maybe he will travel too.

The trainer is operating at a strike rate of 26 per cent in the UK after Noble Yeats' win in the Cleeve Hurdle on Saturday, and the latest indications are that Mullins is favouring Sandown over the greater heat of Leopardstown.

The early Sportsbook betting had Hermes Allen as their firm favourite at 2/13.00 over 7/24.50 Corbetts Cross - one firm initially had the latter as their 7/42.75 jolly, and that Sportsbook price is the best around- but it is a devilishly difficult race to dissect. There is just 5lb separating the English horses (rated between 145 and 150), with Corbetts Cross assessed on 143 by the Irish handicapper.

I don't think connections of current 13/82.63 Turners' favourite Gaelic Warrior will be losing too much sleep after this, but it's a tasty enough race, without necessitating a bet.

We had more examples of what an attritional place the Sandown hurdles track can be last week, with horses seemingly travelling full of zest going to the last but simply downing tools up the hill, even when the ground wasn't officially that bad (though Timeform called it heavy).

Issam stopped to a walk last Friday after trading at 1.11/10, and the heavy odds-on poke Southoftheborder hit 1.021/50 earlier in the card, while another handicap hurdle was won by 19 lengths. There just isn't another place in the country where horses turn around to their jockeys and say "no thanks."

So look for horses with track form, and who stay a lot further than the trip they are running over.

Obviously bookmakers know this too, though, so that is probably not a lot of help. Maybe this body of horses are actually underpriced for those very reasons.

Sandown Saturday 15:10 - Back Wonderwall

The main betting race of the day is probably going to be the 100k 2m7f+ handicap hurdle at 15:10 - there is some good prize money knocking around this weekend - and it has attracted 22 entries, three of whom (last year's runner-up Call Me Lord, Goshen and Operation Manna) have won at the track.

We could get close to a full field of 18 as Monmiral and Scamallach Liath are the only doubly-entered horses, though the Irish pair of Fine Margin (a monumental drifter when an excellent second for his all-powerful stable at Haydock last time) and Ambitious Fellow are in a weekend 3m handicap hurdle at Leopardstown before today's noon confirmation stage there (keep an eye out there).

For obvious reasons, I was immediately drawn to Wonderwall, as I put him up for the Lanzarote at a big price last time (he was a fair late drifter out to a Betfair SP of 30.32) and I didn't get to find out whether that was a good move or not as he was brought down by a faller four out.

It was clearly too far from home to know if he would have played a hand in the finish, but he was going perfectly well at the time and obviously I still think he is a well handicapped horse over hurdles off 128 given his back-form and some of his Flat ability in the summer of 2023.

However, I am not sure he wants the stamina test that 2m7f89yd around here provides, even on drying ground.

The Sportsbook's 5s favourite Ed Keeper (raised 5lb for his unlucky third at Cheltenham on New Year's Day) and 10s poke Ramo were the obvious ones to me. Fine Margin clearly has a big chance too if coming over, mind you, but the Sportsbook obviously have doubts he will as he is top at 8s with them. The 16s chance Dubrovnik Harry would also be of great interest if you can forgive him a very poor run at Haydock last time.

He checked out far too quickly for my liking there, so maybe an issue came to light afterwards.

If it did, and it has been rectified, he had previously shaped well at Cheltenham on his return and ran a good third here in the EBF Final in 2022. He is surely well handicapped now, but he is becoming a horse for whom you have to excuse too many disappointments maybe.

As always, it came down to price for me. I'd back any horse in any race, if the odds were right.

So was I being unduly worried about Wonderwall's stamina? This was a horse who was tried in the Cesarewitch after all (admittedly rather unsuccessfully) and who saw 2m5f out very well when beating City Chief at Doncaster as a novice back in 2022.

He was having his first run for Peter Bowen in the Lanzarote last time, and it is (mildly) interesting that the trainer saddled Lord Napier to finish third in that Kempton handicap before he won this race for him by 9 lengths on his following start (that wasn't the first big handicap that Bowen has won at Sandown, as he sent out Henllan Harri to win the bet365 Gold Cup at 40/141.00 in 2017).

And that was Lord Napier's first attempt beyond 2m5f. Maybe Bowen has seen the same stamina qualities in Wonderwall, as his previous trainer did.

With the race looking like it will hold up numbers-wise and the near-certainty we will get enhanced places on the day (a similar scenario to the Great Yorkshire Chase last Saturday, when Sportsbook punters ended up getting six places, two more than the standard), the simple question I had to ask myself was whether Wonderwall was tippable at the Sportsbook's 33s.

The price about him in the wider marketplace was a general 33s (one firm go 20s), and the Sportsbook are those odds.

I'll have a nibble at 33s win-only. I have no idea if he is an intended runner and he may well be a bigger price on the Betfair Exchange on the day - plus his stable are having a very quiet time, runners-wise - but I'll play small now.

That drying ground must be a plus for him, even on that infamous Sandown hurdles track. Expect him to be played very late going to the last, as he was at Doncaster.

Good luck.

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