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Heavy ground set for Betfair Chase day at Ascot
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Wholestone will relish the conditions
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Course lover Mesnil can go well
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Betfair Chase day at Haydock is here. It's always dangerous to speculate, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that the Clerk of the Course Kirkland Tellwright must have upset a rain god or two at some point in his life, as the correlation between major meetings at Haydock and torrential rain has been quite remarkable in recent years!
The rain has duly arrived in recent days and it looks as though the ground at Haydock will be very hard work which has me delving into the form book for those that are likely to relish such conditions. I reckon I've found a couple.
Wholestone set to relish Haydock slog
The Betfair Exchange Stayers' Handicap Hurdle (14:25) will be a real slog in the prevailing conditions. A sloggy slog, if you will.
There are a few of the market leaders that will be far from certain to relish the conditions themselves or the emphasis they will place on stamina at the trip, but one that has no such concerns is the likeable veteran Wholestone.
The 11-year-old has been a wonderful servant over the years, hitting a career-high mark of 161 after finishing third in the Stayers' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival in 2018.
While he hasn't been operating at those heights more recently, he has continued to win races over both hurdles and fences. Significantly, when he encountered heavy ground at Haydock in the Rendlesham Hurdle back in February he produced an excellent effort to run out the wide-margin winner.
There was a lot to like about his seasonal reappearance effort when he finished second to Good Risk At All at Carlisle and he should both come on from that and be suited by the return to this longer trip. The market has dismissed him in favour of younger contenders, but it wouldn't surprise if he slogged his way to a big run here.
Back Mesnil to Lord it over his rivals
The Best Odds On The Betfair Exchange Handicap Chase (15:35) will be another deep test of stamina at the trip and one that will relish that is the Richard Hobson-trained Lord Du Mesnil. The nine-year-old has enjoyed all of his biggest days at this track, winning three valuable contests on testing ground.
While his liking for the track seemed to desert him last season, he didn't seem himself for most of the campaign and dropped in the handicap as a result.
Encouragingly, he offered plenty of hope that he might return to his best this season when running a fine race on his seasonal reappearance when second in a handicap chase at Bangor last week.
In a perfect world, the cheekpieces that he has worn for his biggest wins would be applied, but he ran well enough without them at Bangor to suggest that he can run a big race back at his beloved Haydock on testing ground.
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