Daily Nap January 20: Henry Gondoff to make the sting at Wincanton

For Thursday’s nap I’m going to side with a horse who is, in effect, trying to make a comeback.

He was a useful novice over hurdles, but things have gone awry since Henry Gondoff made the switch to chasing this season.

This time last year he had 11-lengths to spare over his field in a Wetherby novices’ hurdle over an extended 2m 3f. That was on heavy ground, but he proved next time out under a penalty at Carlisle that he does need it to be bottomless.

Again, he ran well there to be a 1l second on good to soft.

This time, having flopped over fences, he makes his handicap debut from a mark of 122.

A repeat of either of those efforts novice efforts from last season would be good enough to give him a serious chance in Wincanton’s Racing TV Free For A Month Handicap Hurdle (14.45) on Thursday, and the switch back to this discipline looks like being productive.

He’s trained by a bloke who was my sporting hero when he was a jockey, Jonjo O’Neill, and what’s more his name sounds very similar to one of the lead characters from my favourite film, The Sting.

And if you’ve seen that, you’ll know what I mean when I say, don’t ‘place’ your money on Henry Gondoff… back him to win!