The horse racing broadcaster makes his selections for the final day of the Berkshire Winter Million, including one in the feature race of the day.
Sunday is the final day of the Berkshire Winter Million from Windsor, with four races from the headline meeting covered by ITV along with action from Fakenham and a Grade 2 from Thurles.
The races at Windsor make the most appeal from a betting perspective, starting with CREBILLY (13:55 Windsor). The presence of several front-runners looks as if it could set the race up nicely for his hold-up style. Editeur Du Gite and Sans Bruit duelled at a frenetic pace at Kempton last time, and add in Matata – another habitual go forward horse – and there looks every chance that the pace could be overly quick. Crebilly was rather let down by his jumping last season, most notably in the Plate at the Cheltenham Festival where two mistakes at the last three fences cost him dearly. He returned over hurdles in October and this will be his first foray over fences this season. The enigmatic Harper’s Brook will also have the race run to suit and was given a brilliantly cool ride by Kielan Woods to win at Wetherby last time, but just can’t be trusted to go through with his effort.
A strongly run race would also suit DEEP CAVE (14:30), who has been undone by steadily run races in his last two runs at Cheltenham. Stamina looks his strong suit and there appeared to be a fair amount of cut in the ground at Windsor on Friday, so that hopefully should also draw out his staying ability. This is only his fourth run for the stable since coming over from France, and a mark of 129 looks reasonable as long as he gets at least an even gallop.
The feature race of the day at Windsor in the 2m 6f Fitzdares Fleur De Lys Chase, which stages a rematch between Djelo and PROTEKTORAT (15:05) after the former comprehensively outpointed the selection in the Peterborough Chase. The key as to why the form can be turned round lies in the extra 2f, but also the fact that Dan Skelton’s charge will be much better suited to going back left-handed. The Skeltons are targeting valuable TV prizes in the handlers’ quest to be Champion Trainer and Harry’s bid to land the £500,000 David Power Cup, and these conditions could have been written with Protektorat in mind.
The last race is a marathon 3m 5f trip where the O’Neills can saddle another winner courtesy of FORTUNATE MAN (15:40), who seems to be getting the hang of jumping fences and is relatively unexposed at staying trips. He got up close home at Aintree on Boxing Day to beat Gustavian and the handicapper may be chasing him up the rankings for a while. Cheekpieces are applied to provide a little more sharpness and like Deep Cave the more rain the better for his chances.
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