12:05 Cheltenham

Kintail

His bumper form has worked out pretty well and I liked his attitude when he won on his hurdling debut for me at Warwick. The runner-up has since come out and won well at Bangor recently and I think this is a horse who could really thrive and progress with his racing. He has a 6lb penalty and will obviously need to improve to win this, but hopefully there is plenty more to come from the 4yo.

13:15 Cheltenham

Doddiethegreat

This is a horse we are all rooting for to be decent, for obvious reasons, and he certainly hasn’t let us down so far. Four from four, he did remarkably well to win on his return at Ascot last month, considering he severed a tendon and was off for a very long time after winning at Kempton in November 2021. An opening mark of 131 is maybe not overly-generous , but hopefully he can make up for lost time now.

15:35 Cheltenham

Captain Morgs

We have two decent shots at this, with last year’s winner Captain Morgs returning to hurdles on a decent mark and Bold Endeavour coming into the race in good form and with two excellent Cheltenham efforts to his name. I suppose you could argue that both would prefer better ground but hopefully it doesn’t ride too bad and I am on Captain Morgs. He has actually won on soft ground, he reverts to hurdles after a good run over fences last time and he is just 3lb higher than when winning this race well for me last year.