Saturday Racing Tips: Kevin Blake backs Colonel to cut the Mustard in Morebattle

• Kevin's two tips for an exciting Saturday

• Colonel Mustard can beat Mctige in Morebattle

• Does He Know has strong claims at Doncaster

There is not long left to wait now until the Cheltenham Festival, but as we all count down the days, we have some excellent action on both sides of the Scottish border on ITV Racing this Saturday.

Mctigue looks too short in the market

The main event at Kelso is the Morebattle Hurdle (13:50). It is a race that can offer a big-pot opportunity to those that aren't quite rated high enough to get into the likes of the County Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. But it can also represent an opportunity for a select few that may have ambitions of completing a lucrative, bonus-boosted double by winning it and following up at the Cheltenham Festival.

The Emmet Mullins-trained Mctigue is the obvious one that falls into the latter group. Fascinatingly, with him already having been given top weight in the Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, if he was to win this he would benefit from a loophole in the race conditions that says a horse cannot be given a penalty that puts them on a higher weight than the original top weight.

So, if Mctigue wins on Saturday, he will be able to run in the Boodles off the same mark. It'll look like a stroke of genius race planning if it plays out like that, but personally I feel Mctigue ran too badly last time to justify his price for the Morebattle and I'm inclined to take him on.

Colonel Mustard could take a lot of beating

My preference is for another Irish raider in the shape of the Lorna Fowler-trained Colonel Mustard. The eight-year-old wasn't far off some of the best novice hurdlers around last season, finishing in the frame behind Jonbon and Sir Gerhard, but the run that makes him really interesting was his outing in the County Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival last year.

It was a high-class renewal of the race with it being won by State Man and the well-handicapped First Street finishing second, but Colonel Mustard acquitted himself really well by finishing a close third.

While his two outings over fences this season have been good without being great, one suspects that it may well have been a plan for some time to freshen him up for this race and then go back to the County Hurdle. If he turns up here in the sort of form he was in at Cheltenham last year, he'll take a fair bit of whacking.

Does He Know has strong claims

Over the border at Doncaster the Grimthorpe Handicap Chase (15:15) is another competitive handicap, but the Kim Bailey-trained Does He Know might well have too much class for his rivals.

The eight-year-old will carry the highest weight by a margin of 16lb, but he has very much earned it. Just two starts ago he ran out the comfortable winner of a competitive handicap chase at Cheltenham off a mark of 152, idling all the way up the run-in.

He ran just as well when returning from a winter break in the Denman Chase at Newbury and is entitled to come on from that run.

Now just 5lb higher than when gaining the aforementioned win at Cheltenham back in November, he looks to have really strong claims in what looks to be a less competitive contest. Conditions will very much suit and it will be disappointing if he doesn't make a very bold bid.