Evening all,
Just a quick look forward to Chepstow tomorrow and in particular Valadom (28/1) in 4.30. One of my five to follow for the year, the grey gelding takes to hurdles for the first time (as far as I can tell) in his career. I'm not sure what to make of it. You'd imagine it's a pipe-opener for the season ahead over fences, but you wouldn't give your horse a pipe-opener over hurdles in a Grade Two race, would you? Especially if that's his first time over hurdles in public. So there must be more to this than just a pipe-opener.
He races with shared bottom weight, which should help him here and if he bounces out in front like he usually does and lays down a high pace, he could be hard to peg back. He's a great jumper of a fence and if he can translate that to hurdles, he could turn it into a real stamina test. Obviously there's plenty of others in this field with better credentials, but if Valadom can copy his early season form from last year (when made all over 2m4 at Worcester) he could have a say in this race.
Elswhere, Rebecca Curtis' yard is in good form, so Irish Cavalier could go well in the 4.00, where Sire de Grugy will have to overcome top weight and I'm not convinced he's still good enough to do that. I also have Potters Corner (2.50) in my tracker, but I think he might struggle over this longer distance, so Arpege D'Alene could bounce back over fences. Finally Double Ross (5.00) goes pretty well fresh, hasn't raced of a rating below 150 since coming second in January 2014 and the Twiston-Davies' yard are in great form. Could go very well if he leaves the back end of last season behind.
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