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Savills Chase tips: Antepost preview & recommended bets for Leopardstown Christmas Festival
Antepost Value Bet tips: Tuesday, December 28
1pt e.w. Delta Work in Savills Chase at 14/1 (Sky Bet, bet365 1/5 1,2,3)
Leopardstown’s four-day Christmas Festival is right up there among the best meetings in Ireland all season and with six Grade Ones, plus the fiercely competitive Paddy Power Chase (Handicap), already priced up by most firms now looks a good opportunity to try and sneak some early value.
Running plans are obviously not all that easy to decipher at this stage, especially when we’re largely looking at Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott and Henry De Bromhead holding block entries in a few of the contests – certainly in the novice ranks – but thankfully, we’re in a position to pick and choose where to go into battle.
Ferny Hollow is a short price for the Racing Post Novice Chase and Bob Olinger is odds-on for the newly-named Faugheen Novice Chase – both staged on Boxing Day – while December 27 looks likely to witness Energumene in the Paddy Power Rewards Club Chase, before the Savills Chase and Christmas Hurdle feature the following day, and Sharjah goes for a fourth straight Matheson Hurdle on December 29.
The Savills Chase is the really interesting one, not least due to the fact everyone seemingly expects this to be an absolute cakewalk for runaway Betfair Chase winner A Plus Tard, who won this race narrowly last season and is already no bigger than 5/4 to repeat the trick.
It’s highly unlikely to be quite as simple as the ante-post price suggests, though, with the two previous Savills heroes – Kemboy and Delta Work – also in line for another crack, plus emerging talents such as Galvin, Janidil and Asterion Forlonge, albeit the latter perhaps looking more likely to take up his King George engagement instead, according to the latest Willie Mullins column.
There are also a couple of relatively interesting British entries headed by Protektorat – though Champ must be 100/1 to even line up (remarkably, he’s a top-priced 16/1 in the win market) – so, short-priced favourite or not, it should be another race to savour having thrown up some really dramatic finishes in recent seasons.
Tidal Bay’s incredible victory in 2012 is still a vivid memory but even going back 12 months it’s worth recalling things were far from straightforward for A Plus Tard, who just nailed Kemboy and Melon after the last, having touched 150/1 in-running on the Betfair Exchange.
Granted, he looked an improved model when slamming Royale Pagaille at Haydock and, having recently recommended Venetia Williams’ runner-up as the value play at 20/1 for Kempton, I’m happy to take a very positive view of the form.
In the same breath, Betfair Chase superiority is often accentuated for reasons beyond my knowledge, no matter the underfoot conditions, and a strict reading of A Plus Tard beating a 163-rated animal 22 lengths without being asked for maximum effort is clearly dangerous.
I’d expect the Leopardstown locals to put up considerably more resistance over Christmas and DELTA WORK at 14/1 is the each-way bet that makes most appeal.
Like Kemboy, he’s a real specialist around this track and prior to last season his chase form at the venue read three starts, three wins, including the aforementioned 2019 victory in this race.
Last year it just didn’t really happen for Delta Work, but he wasn’t alone in that regard when it came to Gordon Elliott horses (who then ran under the Denise Foster banner during Elliott’s ban), and it’s far too soon to be writing the eight-year-old off as being on the downgrade.
On the contrary, his comeback run at Down Royal (free replay in full below) was considerably more encouraging – 9 lb better according to Timeform ratings – than his reappearance in the same race the previous year, and it’s a familiar path for him to take having been fairly well held at Down Royal prior to his Leopardstown win two years ago.
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Elliott (and the Gigginstown team, no doubt) was very keen to get Jack Kennedy off Gold Cup winner Minella Indo to ride Delta Work in his prep race and, though the unlucky Kennedy is out injured again, the yard isn’t short of jockeys who will be queuing up for the ride. Davy Russell – who gets on extremely with the horse – looks the logical option if Jamie Codd sticks with Down Royal runner-up Galvin.
Delta Work is unlikely to ever repeat his 2018 Pertemps Final heroics in anything at the Cheltenham Festival, but this race is unquestionably 'his Gold Cup' and providing he comes on as expected for the spin at the end of October, the current 14/1 definitely underestimates him.
Published at 1530 GMT on 12/12/21
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