Matt Brocklebank has three Saturday selections to consider ahead of the competitive ITV4 action from Ffos Las and Chelmsford.
Value Bet tips: Saturday January 11
2pts win Saint Davy in 1.15 Ffos Las at 4/1 (General)
1pt e.w. Urban Sprawl in 2.40 Chelmsford at 12/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5)
1pt win Up For Parol in 2.58 Ffos Las at 12/1 (Ladbrokes, Coral, BetVictor)
Saint's day in Wales
Ffos Las (hopefully) keeps the ITV show on the road this weekend, with a little help from Ireland and no shortage of all-weather filler which I’ll come to, and the Grade 2 Dragonbet Towton Novices’ Chase has a decent look to it despite coming up one horse shy for each-way purposes.
Transferred from its traditional home at Wetherby – where they’ve only had four runners in each of the past three editions, incidentally – it is likely to be billed as something of a match race between Ben Pauling’s Handstands and the mare Cherie d’Am.
They both won very nicely on their second chase starts at Sandown and Warwick respectively and the betting market will tell you they’re expected to carry on improving which seems reasonable enough at first glance. In fact, the initial 9/4 about Handstands disappeared fairly quickly on Friday lunchtime and he’s as short as 6/4 in places, with Cherie d’Am 5/2.
What that does potentially overlook, however, is the prospect of SAINT DAVY taking a significant step forward from his own introduction to fences which came in the Esher Novices’ Chase won by Handstands.
Being thrown into Grade 2 company with no previous experience was always going to be a challenge but on reflection the Jonjo and AJ O’Neill-trained horse ran with real credit. He was keen enough early on which probably took its toll late in the piece, but he travelled with menace in behind the eventual winner for much of the journey and is bound to have learned a huge amount about the jumping game.
Beaten only four lengths by Handstands despite Jonjo jnr dropping his stick on the run-in, I’m convinced there will be very little between the pair of them this time around and if one of them has the gears to cope with Cherie d’Am over this shorter trip then I suspect it could be Saint Davy.
He’s not a wild price by any means but the 4/1 offers good value against the two above him in the betting and should be taken as the other four in the race all have major questions to answer.
On Parol for Snowden and Sheehan
The other one to be on in West Wales is the Jamie Snowden-trained UP FOR PAROL in the Dragonbet The Independent Bookmaker Handicap Hurdle over the thick end of three miles.
The favourites here are One Big Bang, who now tries cheekpieces and looks high enough in the weights regardless of how effective that move proves to be, and the unbeaten £70,000 point recruit Rosscahill.
Nigel Twiston-Davies’ six-year-old has a strange way of covering the ground and is not the easiest on the eye but he’s obviously going to be a nice staying chaser in time and copes well with testing ground.
There’s a fair chance he’s on the right side of the assessor too, starting out as he does from a mark of 120, but I’m not sure he’s anywhere near as well-handicapped as Paul Nicholls’ Henri The Second, who Up For Parol bumped into when filling the runner-up spot at Sandown last month.
That first run since April has surely brought the nine-year-old on – though he can go well fresh, admittedly – and there’s no escaping the fact he’s on a good mark (121) now as his handicap win at Haydock a few years ago came from 127.
Gavin Sheehan gets on well with this horse (has been second the past twice he’s ridden) and is back on board this weekend, while soft ground and a strong pace to chase should also see the son of Flemensfirth in his best light. A small win bet looks justified.
ITV4 viewers get a bit of a rare treat with the SBK Dan & Joan Moore Memorial Handicap Chase live from Fairyhouse and it’s a wide-open heat.
Top weight Hunters Yarn, down in class after running in the Hilly Way on his seasonal comeback, could ultimately blow them all away and his presence under Paul Townend does put me off parting with my cash rather.
The one I came closest to backing was The King Of Prs, one of three for Gavin Cromwell and ridden by 5lb claimer Conor Stone-Walsh.
This horse brings rock-solid handicap form to the table after near-misses here and at Leopardstown over Christmas, and it wouldn’t be a surprise at all to see a genuinely testing surface (still partly frozen and unraceable at the time of writing) spark further improvement over fences, seeing as he’s won on heavy going in the past.
Urban beats them all?
I won’t get bogged down in the half-dozen televised all-weather races from Chelmsford and Newcastle - the majority are largely unappealing betting heats and wouldn’t typically feature in this column – but the bet365 Handicap at 2.40 is a good, competitive 0-90 contest and URBAN SPRAWL’s course record seems to have been underestimated (or ignored).
Charlie Johnston’s horse has been to Chelmsford three times – all during 2023 – and has highly respectable form figures of 322. Considering those runs came from marks of 85, 86 and 85, he’s got to be worth a second look running off 79 this weekend and last Saturday’s Wolverhampton outing – his first for 75 days – looked like it would bring him on a ton.
Drawn widest of all, he raced about four horses deep for the first two and a half furlongs and clearly covered more ground than anything else in the field. Despite this, he still managed to lead briefly approaching the final furlong and was eventually beaten three lengths once the lack of a recent run appeared to show.
Johnston has had five winners in the past fortnight and they’ve all been horses who have been on the go and ran in the past month so I like the quick turnaround for Urban Sprawl, who is 0-10 on the all-weather but runs off a mark just 2lb higher than when claiming a fifth career turf win at Pontefract in the autumn.
Callum Shepherd takes the reins here and while there’s likely going to be a bit of competition for the lead courtesy of Silent Move and Eagle Day, stall four should give the selection every chance to gain an ideal early position. He won’t be an easy one to peg back if things pan out as expected so take the each-way prices with firms offering five places.
Published at 1600 GMT on 10/01/25
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