Cheltenham Greatwood Hurdle Preview

The Greatwood Hurdle has thrown up yet another fiercely competitive renewal at this year’s November Meeting where once again there is many of the field that you could put forward a convincing case for. I was just touched off in second with my tip for the Bet Victor Gold Cup in Starchitect at 10/1 on Saturday here so we’ll see if I can go one better with the couple of selections i’ve got for this.

There’s been a fairly sizeable gamble on Nicky Henderson’s Jenkins here as he now finds himself at the top of the market with Ian Williams smart dual purpose horse London Prize. There’s an argument that Jenkins could well be chucked in here off his current mark as he has bags of potential and has apparently been showing lots of improvement at home with his jumping.

There are lots of questions still hanging over Jenkins head however, he may well bolt in but i’m going to try and take him on and i’ll be doing that first with MOHAAYED for Dan & Harry Skelton. This yard need no introduction to the success they’ve been having in recent times and this is a horse that Dan has always thought highly of. He ran some big races last season including a respectable 7th out of 25 in the County Hurdle here at The Festival, followed up with a 3rd placed effort in the Scottish Champion Hurdle. He’ll likely be ridden somewhat off the pace however and will probably need a little luck in running but he does have form on soft ground after yesterday’s soaking. He’s best priced 7/1.

The second one i’m going to take a chance on here is OLD GUARD for Paul Nicholls and Bryony Frost. The same Owner, Trainer & Jockey combination that saw success here on Saturday with Black Corton as an outsider attempt to do it again with this one. He won this race back in 2015, it hasn’t been plain sailing since that victory but has decent form in patches in decent contests and his victory last time out at Kempton will of done him the world of good confidence wise. He’s back off a fair mark as well no and as he’s trading at a general 25/1 he might be worth taking an each way chance on.