Timeform TV Focus: ITV racing tips on Friday 27 December

The Timeform TV Focus team provide their best bets on all the ITV action!

The crack team of analysts, reporters, and handicappers behind their world-renowned data and ratings help you find more value every week with leading insight and winning picks.

You can now take advantage of their decades of racing knowledge for free with Sporting Life Plus, available from 11am on the morning of all ITV racedays.

Chepstow

1.05 1 pt – 4 Lowry’s Bar

Nocte Volatus comes into this at the top of his game and with a good record at the track, but it is a concern that he’s been ridden by good-value conditionals on all three previous starts this season and he’s up against an much less exposed one in Lowry’s Bar here, anyway. Lowry’s Bar has made a fine start over fences, shaping well in a strongly-contested race on his chasing debut before going one better at Exeter earlier this month. On the face of it, a 4 lb rise for that neck defeat of a veteran might seem a bit harsh, but Lowry’s Bar won a bit snugly and surely hasn’t yet shown his all in this sphere. He’s just the kind of prominent-racer to be seen to good advantage at this track, and his yard continues in the best form it’s been for several seasons.

1.40 No Bet Advised

The experienced French juvenile Nietzsche Has stands out on Timeform ratings in this. Even with a 5-lb penalty for winning a Grade 3 at Auteuil back in May he’s at least a stone clear of everything else, fully fifteen lengths clear of the rest when runner-up in the Prix Cambaceres back at Auteuil last month. That’s the top 3-y-o hurdle race in France and, whilst there are clearly several promising home-trained in opposition here, it’s very hard to see anything being good enough to account for Nietzsche Has if he’s in the same sort of form just over a month on. Whether we’d want to suggest backing him at a top price of 6/4 is a different matter, however, always a slight concern that travelling will have had an adverse effect and no prior experience of British-style hurdles, either. In short, it’s a race we’re happy to sit out.

2.10 1 pt ew – 5 Dans le Vent

Dans le Vent might be rising twelve but he surely has a better chance of being involved in the finish of this than his price on Thursday afternoon might suggest. Admittedly, it’s more than three years since he won a race and almost as long since he looked like winning a race, but the handicapper has given him a proper chance and it’s easy to give him a pass for both efforts so far this season, given a considerate ride on his return from a long absence and unsuited by the way the race developed in a strongly-contested affair at Haydock last time. The Haydock form is already showing signs of working out well, Dans le Vent has been dropped another 2 lb since then, and he should be spot on in terms of fitness now to boot.  

2.50 1 pt ew – 2 Iwilldoit

An open-looking renewal of the Welsh National but by no means a top-quality one. It’s tricky finding horses that may be ahead of their mark, too, and that’s why we’re leaning towards the old-timer and 2021 winner Iwilldoit. He acquitted himself with considerable credit in this twelve months ago, too, albeit a long way back in third behind the runaway winner Nassalam. That came on the back of a tune-up over hurdles but Iwilldoit has shown himself more than capable of showing his form when fresh, too, as he did when defying a twelve-months absence in this. He’s 6 lb lower this season than last, has the benefit of the good-value conditional Callum Pritchard on board for the first time, and is worth backing each-way with the enhanced terms that are on offer with plenty of firms.

Kempton

1.20 1 pt – 4 The Lord Maid (Non-runner)

The most obvious improvers in this handicap are perhaps the ones trying the trip for the first time, and, of that handful, The Lord Maid strikes as the one likeliest to be suited by it. She’s also the least exposed of the field in general after just three outings over timber, and she hasn’t taken long to reach a near-useful level, winning her first two starts towards the end of last season then finishing a good front-running second on her handicap debut at Warwick a month ago. That Warwick effort came over 21 furlongs, but The Lord Maid seems very likely to be suited by this trip, considering both her pedigree – her dam was a three-mile winner and is related to stayers – and the way she struck to her task that day. She’s only 2 lb higher this time and won’t need to pull out much more to go close again.

1.55 1 pt – 4 Sir Gino

This will be the fifth successive four-runner Wayward Lad but a clash between Ballbyurn – seemingly the first-ever Irish-trained runner in the race – and Sir Gino, makes it an absolute corker of a contest. The former is a tip-top chaser in the making and couldn’t be faulted on what he did when making a successful debut over fences at Punchestown last month, but Sir Gino is no less of a prospect for chasing and could be worth siding with at a shade of odds against. Sir Gino hasn’t looked anywhere near bottomed out in going unbeaten in five outings over hurdles, including the Fighting Fifth on his comeback last month, and has the physique and demeanour of one set to prove even better over fences. If he transfers that hurdling form across at the first time of asking then it’ll take something quite spectacular form Ballyburn to concede him 6 lb.

2.30 1 pt – 1 Edwardstone

The six-timer-seeking Martator isn’t one to oppose lightly in the Desert Orchird even from 11 lb higher than for his latest Ascot success, as that form is working out well, but there are grounds for looking elsewhere at the prices and perhaps Edwardstone can make his class tell running in his first ever handicap over fences. There’s plenty of form in the book over the last two seasons to suggest a mark of 163 should be within his compass and he might easily find the drop to this grade liberating, especially in a race that should be run to suit and in which he’s forcing half the field out of the handicap.

3.08 1 pt – 8 Weveallbeencaught

There aren’t many appealing profiles in this handicap but Weveallbeencaught perhaps retains a bit of potential as a chaser and is worth chancing in a race his trainer Christian Williams seems to target, having won it in 2021 and had the second last year and in 2020. Weveallbeencaught is still a maiden over fences, but he’s been set some tough tasks, many of them at Cheltenham, including when having little to recommend him from well out of the weights in the Paddy Power last time. His preceding second in a novice handicap at the same track is a piece of form that gives him a solid chance in this, and he should be better suited by this trip than the two and a half miles of that race, with a 5-lb claimer also taking over in the saddle.

You can access the TV Focus selections and rationale at 5pm the evening before racing for £7.50 on the Timeform website.

Safer gambling

We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.

If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.

Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.