Cheltenham Festival: day two

A flick through Wednesday’s races

Wow, what a way to start the Cheltenham Festival, and when Labaik crossed the line ahead of Melon at 25/1 in the first, we knew it just wasn’t going to be a day for favourite backers. We size up each race on day two, and run through our best bets below…..

Neptune Novices Hurdle

Harry Fry and Noel Fehily join forces on Neon Wolf to bring the curtain up on day two, and we fancy that as a winning combination. The hugely talented five-year-old gelding is unbeaten in three career starts, scoring at Uttoxeter, Exeter and Haydock, the latter by a sizeable margin over nearest rival Elgin. He gets better every time we see him, and I expect that trend to continue. 7/4 favourite with Coral at present, but he fully deserves to be. Will take all the beating.

RSA Chase

We’re really not expecting a repeat of day one, and go with another market leader to live up to the pre-race hype in Nicky Henderson’s Might Bite, currently circling at 3/1. He looked on-course to do a job on Boxing Day at Kempton, but fell at the last with the race at his mercy. He put things right at Doncaster last time, coming home unchallenged, and we have a real classy horse on our hands here. Well worth our support, and I expect him to do it in style again.

Coral Cup

What a competitive field we have turned out for the Coral Cup this year, but I am going for a bit of an upset and taking Alan King’s River Frost at a bulky 22/1. That may be one for each-way players to have a stab at, but I have saw more than enough from him in recent goes to suggest he’s up to the task here. Won three of his last four, including over two-miles five-furlongs at Kempton last time. That’ll certainly boost your betting balance.