Sweet Kiln is remarkable value

By Ian Carnaby

Everyone makes predictions for the New Year, it seems. I’m not sure I feel all that strongly about anything, although I rather doubt that Roy Hodgson is the man to save Fulham and they should have gone for Glenn Hoddle. A cold fish, for sure, but someone who can handle tricky situations in the Premier League and get you out of bother quite quickly, as he showed at Southampton.

Otherwise, this will be the year the pendulum swings back towards Godolphin and away from Coolmore/Ballydoyle, Tom O’Brien will suggest even more strongly that he is a champion jumps jockey in waiting and Dandy Nicholls will probably win the Ayr Gold Cup with one you can’t quite find in the form book. I shall go through the card on Champion Hurdle day, land an amazing coup in a 7f handicap at Newbury with a horse previously fifth in a Chepstow claimer, give Southampton £5m to spend on players and offer my services as chairman. If you can go with only three of these predictions, try Godolphin, O’Brien and Nicholls.

If someone said to me I could have only one banker to pay for a year’s foolishness in other respects, I suppose it would have to be Inglis Drever in the World Hurdle. Watching the Steel Plate And Sections Hurdle at Cheltenham the other day, I wondered what on earth might trouble him, given that the winner, Blazing Bailey, has nearly five lengths to find on last year’s running in the big one and the horses he beat the other day nearly all have big, black question marks hanging over them.

Wichita Lineman finished second, eight lengths adrift. Like his half-brother Rhinestone Cowboy he has plenty of ability but is not entirely reliable. A P McCoy gets on better with both of them than anyone apart from Glenn Campbell and preferred Wichita Lineman to Black Jack Ketchum in Blazing Bailey’s race. Black Jack has probably lost interest in the game, although it was a serious mistake at the sixth which put paid to his chances. No one would ever back Redemption to get round, never mind win, while Faasel has never recovered from the very hard race he had against Penzance in the Triumph Hurdle a long while ago. Add to that Afsoun’s tendency to hang left these days, quite apart from being a horse without a trip, and you may conclude that Blazing Bailey beat a motley crew.

Then you look at the current betting on the World Hurdle and you see that, after Inglis Drever at a top-priced 2 to 1, Wichita Lineman is only 9 to 2 in places (truly appalling value), with Blazing Bailey next on 7 to 1. Although Hardy Eustace MAY stay three miles, he was well beaten by Lough Derg (40 to 1 and a long way adrift in the World Hurdle last year) at Ascot, while Black Jack Ketchum may well be an absentee.

But for the possibility that Sweet Kiln will make the line-up, Inglis Drever would appear to be the bet of the meeting at this stage. But there was much to like about the way she tracked Sonnyanjoe in the Christmas Hurdle at Leopardstown before quickening past him and winning quite tidily. All the other old sweats, good performers in their time, were beaten out of sight. The reason I like the form is because Sonnyanjoe is the very opposite of Black Jack Ketchum - a tough, relentless galloper who never knows when he’s beaten and keeps coming back for more. At Haydock, where he was taking on good staying handicappers only a week after grinding out a victory at Cheltenham, he looked beaten on the home turn but still kept on with heart-warming determination to finish second, which would have been third but for Special Envoy’s fall.

I doubt that Sweet Kiln, who has excellent Grade One form to her credit over shorter trips, will trouble Inglis Drever. On the other hand, I much prefer her to anything in the recent Cheltenham affair and she is 25 to 1 for the World Hurdle with the Tote. Sure, the plan at the moment is to go for the new David Nicholson Mares Only Hurdle at the Festival and it will be a while before we see any prices on that. But how often have you known Irish trainers change their mind and go for the bigger prize as the meeting looms? It happens all the time.

I’d be inclined to have a little each-way on the Tote and then back Sweet Kiln again if she does indeed opt for the Duke’s race. She is underrated and the staying hurdlers, apart from Inglis Drever (and leaving Mighty Man out of the equation) are really very ordinary indeed.