King For A Day

31/1/16

What a day for Alan King yesterday bagging four big prizes and the opener at Doncaster which has prompted a quick deletion in the Trainer Trends section that he is at the top tier of the second division after a couple of disappointing years by his standards.

In terms of big handicap successes, King has been the man in Britain this season having taken the Paddy Power, Hennessy, Sky Bet Chase and Freebets.com Trophy and, with a Neptune favourite and a strong hand for the Triumph plus Smad Place for the Gold Cup (he confirmed that was the aim this morning) and plenty of handicap chances, I can see Cheltenham Racecourse hastily reorganising their Stable Tour Media Day schedule in the lead up to March 15-18 as there is no planned visit there at present whereas there is for Henderson and Nicholls.

His Annacotty has been a real star for us this season in Big Race Focus as, in addition to winning the Paddy Power Gold Cup when advised at 16/1 ante-post, he followed up yesterday having been suggested at 10/1 for the Freebets.com Trophy on Wednesday. It looks like he will be upped in trip for the Ultima Business Solutions Handicap Chase at the Festival. The sponsors of that race also sponsor the King yard but the decision to run there will have more to do requiring 3m on spring ground as essentially he is a stayer. I can tell you now that I won’t be backing him for a third time this season in that race however as it’s a strong trends race and he’ll be rated in the high 150s and no winner has been rated 150+ since 1983.

Paul Ferguson’s Novice Note Book will be uploaded on Monday in Guest Contributions ahead of Week 12 of Cheltenham Ante-Post at 7.00 p.m. as usual. Starting on Thursday will be Mike Henderson’s weekly preview of the Premier League Darts in Sport which kicks off in the Leeds Arena where I saw The Who last year. Awful design of arena. Ideal for product launches in its lecture style design but not concerts, though I dare say that darts fans will care two hoots. Mike has made a profit in five of the seven events he has covered for us and hopefully Michael van Gerwen can take down the Masters for him today having been advised at 7/4 and make it 6-8 as he is now 8/11 following the exit of Anderson and Lewis.