Saturday Kempton racing tip preview: Pic D'Orhy set to dominate small field

Fiosrach is run by multi-award winning tipster Andrew, who was the founder and main tipster at Cleeve Racing. Profits were made in every season when Andrew was tipping at Cleeve and he was admitted into the Secret Betting Club Hall of Fame in 2019.

You can access Fiosrach selections at a reduced trial price for the rest of January 2023 by visiting his Tipstrr page here .

From my perspective as an experienced tipster this will be a no-bet race, as small field races tend to be run at a false pace with a last-furlong sprint to decide the winner.

However, there are some interesting trends worth looking at:

These trends reduce the field to two candidates, which head the market: namely Pic D'Orhy (11/8 favourite) and Paint The Dream (5/2 second favourite).

Paint The Dream has never run at Kempton, so that eliminates him and leaves Pic D'Orhy as the only selection on trends.

I always add form analysis after going through the trends and the following three horses were of interest - Pic D'Orhy, Paint The Dream and Angels Breath.

Paint The Dream lacks course form, but has managed to win a Grade 3 chase at Newbury, where three of his four chase wins have come. He won very well last time, but that was a Class 2 handicap and this Grade 2 asks him to do something new.

His trainer Fergal O'Brien was very pleased with that last run and spoke of how the horse has strengthened up, but probably needs too much improvement to win this.

Angels Breath had been trained by Nicky Henderson when last seen on the racecourse a whopping 1,121 days ago, and won a Grade 2 Novice Chase at Ascot by an impressive 23 lengths.

Unfortunately, the nine-year-old gelding struck into himself that day and badly cut a tendon, which explains his long absence. Sam Thomas now trains and it is interesting that the same owners have stuck with him all that time - a very expensive business with vets' bills and training fees.

That would suggest that Angels Breath has been given time and retains ability, which makes his 9/1 look attractive, especially as he will love the going.

The horse also has entries in the Grade 1 Ryanair Chase and the Cheltenham Gold Cup, which further indicates his well-being.

Pic D'Orhy is a course-and-distance winner and, as mentioned above, is best on the trends. He is something of a small-field bully and all his five chase wins have come in fields of seven runners or less, and he is the most likely winner here having already won twice at this level.

The stable is operating at a 36% strike rate over the last fourteen days and Pic D'Orhy can add to those statistics by winning a race named after a past Ditcheat star.

As I mentioned I won't be tipping in this race, but if there had been eight runners I would have been tempted by Angels Breath each way for the reasons stated above.