ThruxBets

Not many bets on here recently but I did enjoy watching the action at Chester and the O’Brien / Moore angle that I highlighted really paid dividends with all five of their horses winning.

The focus this week goes from the Roodee to the Knavesmire with the excellent Dante meeting kicking off on Wednesday.

Before that though there’s two other Yorkshire meetings to look at and I think there’s a couple of bets for me at Catterick on Monday.

2.30 Catterick I respect the chances of Mount Ruapehu but I’m taking him on here with KINGS MERCHANT. I love a class dropper and Phil Kirby’s 5yo drops into a class 6 for the first time in his career. Hasn’t won for almost 2 years (Sep 23) but that was in a class 3 off 82 and is off just 65 today. This is only his 2nd start at 7f on turf but has shaped recently like 7f may be within his capabilities, especially with this ease in grade. Will to have a punt at 9/1.

KINGS MERCHANT // 0.5pt E/W @ 9/1 (Paddy Power) 4 places

4.00 Catterick I’ve plumped for IRISH DANCER in this 5f sprint on the basis that the 6yo is the best of a bad bunch. In all honesty, it’s a pretty stinking race. There’s 11 runners in this and a quick scan down their recent form shows that in their last 77 races combined, they’ve managed just 2 wins between them. IRISH DANCER doesn’t have a ‘1’ next to his name but he’s got a good chance here back on turf, running well enough LTO behind a rival who subsequently won NTO?! His form at this grade, in these conditions over 5f in the last 18 months is 1422142. Surely he’s got to be trying to win this for a second year in a row?!

IRISH DANCER // 1.5pts Win @ 9/4 (Bet365)