Saturday’s Warwick Chase is always a good test of jumping and stamina. If I could be sure about The Conditional’s stamina, I’d make him the sole bet. But this is his first attempt at the trip on ground that is currently soft. His form since moving from Ireland has been a revelation. He won a decent race at Cheltenham and was then 2nd in the Ladbrokes Trophy (Hennessy), looking tired jumping the last but battling on well (especially when challengers reached his flank) to hold onto second. Saturday will see him try three furlongs farther than he has before, although the opposition are not in quite the same class as many of his Newbury opponents were.  Also, Warwick is a much tighter, sharper track than either Cheltenham or Newbury with, arguably, fewer chances of a breather.

Le Breuil is one of my Grand National fancies. He left all previous form behind in his first attempt at marathon distances when he won the NH Chase at last year’s festival. This will be his first run since that demands similar stamina. Luca Morgan, a good 7lb claimer rides and Le Breuil should leave the shadow of his last two runs behind.

But the best value here, I think is the 12-y-o Mysteree. He’d been out of form all of 2018 making no impression in 5 outings. In February 2019 they tried blinkers for the first time and he ran a stormer in The Eider, beaten a neck by Crosspark (an old friend of this blog who sadly seems to have lost his form). Mysteree returned this season in October and skated up at Kelso over 3m2f and then ran a poor race at Aintree, which is what I think has made him too big a price here.

That run was Mysteree’s first over the Grand National fences and I think it’s worth assuming that he simply hated them. Facing those green spruce ‘walls’ after years of jumping black birch might just have left him wondering what was going on.  Like Le Breuil he is guaranteed to stay and, fingers crossed, to jump round. The blinkers are on again and while there is always the chance that their effect has faded, and that contributed to the Aintree run, I am happy at the price of 14/1 to pay to find out.

Mysteree is my biggest bet as he represents best value. I’ll have a smaller bet on Le Breuil at 8/1 and then just enough on The Conditional to cover all my stakes.

The prices below are all with Betvictor who offers best odds guaranteed, so there is no downside of taking these prices now. Betvictor also offer 4 places if you’d rather bet EW.

Selections

3.00 Warwick, Saturday

The Conditional  9/2

Le Breuil  8/1

Mysteree  14/1

All one star bets, all win only.

Good luck. Most tipsters are unreliable and inconsistent, including me. Don’t bet more than you can afford to lose with a smile – whatever the source of the tip.

All the best
Joe