Batteries Recharged

13/1/7

I returned home from a short break to Prague for the first time late last night (it was interesting to experience air temperatures of -17 for one early morning stroll down to the Charles Bridge) so the batteries are now recharged for the big push towards Cheltenham. In a desperate attempt to try and find some common ground with the taxi driver on the way to the hotel I tried to engage in a conversation about the Velka Pardubicka, but he had absolutely no idea what I was going on about.

“The Velka what?”

“You know, the big horserace over lots of fences near Prague. The biggest fence is called The Taxis so you should have heard of it. Josef Vana wins it every year. Charlie Mann won it once. Red trousers.”

“Josef who?”

“Old guy, I think he’s won it eight times now.”

“Horses? In Prague? No.”

“Okay, can you recommend any nice restaurants?”

Alright, I made the Charlie Mann bit up. A shame that whilst away I heard that the last two Gold Cup winners, Coneygree and Don Cossack, will be both be absent from this season’s race. What chance a Colin Tizzard 1-2-3-4 now? Unbelievable that I can even write that line but it’s not unrealistic given the way that he is talking about how well Alary works at home plus the chances of Cue Card taking his chance should have increased following news of the main two dangers to the stable winning the Gold Cup will no longer be there.

More of this in Week 9 of Cheltenham Ante-Post where I might be struggling for a lot of copy this week looking at the heavy snow falling outside my door as I write and I’m onnly 50 minutes away from Warwick. I’ll crack on with the weekend Race Previews this afternoon and fingers crossed that we’ll get some good racing to keep us interested.

On the sport front, it was a nice start to Ciaran Meagher's Golf column as he made a good profit on his first event with Pat Perez each-way at 80/1 finishing third and also advised a confident bet at 3/1 on the same player for a Top 10 plus also making a small profit on Jordan Spieth (advised each-way at 11/2 in a small field) also hitting the frame. Ciaran will be returning to cover the Farmers Insurance Open which starts on January 26th.

Carl Redden will be previewing the Australian Open Tennis this weekend and covering the fortnight’s action on a round-by-round basis. Mike Henderson is back today with his previews of the BDO World Darts quarter finals with three recommendations, the first match of which starts at 12.30 p.m. Ross Miles will be returning with his NFL column now we are into the Play Offs and I hope that some of you got 16/1 about his Jordan Nelson recommendation to attain most receiving touchdowns for the regular season back in September. I’ll be back with Premier League Picks today trying to make it six consecutive winning weekends on the footy after three winning bets out of four last time.