Harry Cobden’s Planet Sport Bet Cheltenham blog: Big field might suit Trelawne in Ultima

Cheltenham is the four days in the calendar we all look forward to most and I can’t wait to get going.
 
The season so far has been amazing and I’ve loved every minute of it, but these spring meetings are where you really want to ride winners so I’ll be doing everything I can to add another one or two to my CV.
 
I’d be hopeful that all of my rides will have some sort of a chance, but as we know the racing is so competitive, particularly with the power that the Irish bring over these days.

At this stage, I’d say Stay Away Fay in the Brown Advisory is my best chance of a winner, but I’ve got plenty of others that you couldn’t rule out either.
 

14:50 (Cheltenham) Trelawne

I kick off this year’s festival with Trelawne in the Ultima for Kim Bailey.

I watched back some of his races and he looks a pretty quirky type, but he is yet to run a bad race and some of his form does read pretty well, including the third to Ginny’s Destiny and Grey Dawning at Cheltenham in December.
 
I do think he’s got quite a lot of ability and this race might just be what he needs. In smaller fields he might lose a bit of concentration but where there are more runners there’s less daylight and I think that might help him.

Hopefully there’s a bit more to come off a mark of 144 and I’m quite hopeful he can run well.

 

16:50 (Cheltenham) Liari

My other ride on the opening day is Liari in the Boodles.
 
We all know it’s one of the most competitive races of the entire meeting and it won’t be an easy task off top-weight.

He’s been impressive on all three starts, though, and I was pretty taken with the way he won at Musselburgh last time.
 
He’ll have to step up again to take this, but I don’t think we’ve got to the bottom of him yet and we also know he won’t mind the likely soft ground as he thrived on it when he won at Aintree earlier this season.

I’m looking forward to riding him and I’m hopeful he can run well.