New Year's Day Racing Tips: 28/1 Simply The Betts leads the way for Kevin Blake at Cheltenham

• Betfair Ambassador Kevin Blake analyses the New Years Day racing at Cheltenham

• Simply The Betts worth a bet at a big price

• Dashel Drasher consistently overlooked despite consistent form

Happy New Year! 2022 will soon be in the rear-view mirror and we can all look forward to 2023. Hopefully 2022 was an enjoyable and profitable year for you and 2023 will be even better.

Less racing resulting in better quality

While the small fields caused by better ground than ideal and the near complete absence of racing during the big freeze a couple of weeks ago was frustrating at the time, we will reap some of the unintended benefits of it in the coming days as much of the better class of races in the UK this weekend have bigger than usual fields.

Who could have thought that less racing would lead to better racing?! Maybe there's a lesson for the BHA in that...

Simply the obvious Bett

My focus for this column will be on Cheltenham on Sunday and the first race of interest is the Paddy Power New Year's Day Handicap Chase (13:55). Brace yourself, as I'll be hoping that David Maxwell can take it to the max on Simply The Betts.

The case for the 10-year-old is a relatively simple one. He has an excellent record over this distance on the new track at Cheltenham, winning twice and finishing second twice from four starts which all came in very competitive handicap chases.

The British handicapping team have been making a concerted effort to drop the ratings of handicap chasers in the last year or so and Simply The Betts is another example of this practice in action, with him having been dropped a total of 8lb for his last three runs despite them all having been quite good efforts.

His Corinthian owner/rider bought him over the summer and their first run together was a solid one around the old course at Cheltenham last time. That run should sharpen him up and now that he returns to his preferred new course, it wouldn't at all surprise if they combine to run a big race.

Just in case you aren't familiar with David Maxwell, he is a true amateur jockey that buys horses to ride in races. He is capable of getting the job done as he showed when winning a handicap hurdle at Sandown last month, but his style isn't the most vigorous and it is important that one supports his mounts in that knowledge. When his mounts are as big a price as Simply The Betts is, it can be a chance worth taking.

Dashel Drasher consistently overlooked

The other race of interest is the careers@dornangroup.com Relkeel Hurdle (14:30). This is a refreshingly competitive renewal of this race and a case can be made for the majority of the nine runners. However, I am returning to an old favourite who once again seems to be unreasonably underestimated by the betting market, Dashel Drasher.

I'm not sure what it is about this horse, perhaps it is simply that he isn't trained by one of the more high-profile trainers in Britain, but he is consistently overpriced for his races despite having a tremendously consistent profile at a high level.

While he has been seen more so over fences than hurdles of late, he has won his last six outings over hurdles and has shown on multiple occasions that he can switch smoothly between codes. His most recent run in the Many Clouds Chase wasn't far off his best form and prior to that he had made a winning return in a conditions hurdle at Aintree. Returning to this mid-range trip will very much suit him and another big run from him would not be a surprise.