The Supreme Novices’ Hurdle will kick off the 2024 Cheltenham Festival in just four weeks’ time. Our tipsters are beginning to find the value bets across the board for the meeting, and our resident expert, Joe Napier, takes a look at the opening race of the Festival with an eye on one particular Irish hopeful.
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Odds correct at time of writing
Supreme Novices’ Hurdle – Mystical Power 1pt e/w 34/5
Ballyburn shot to the head of the market with a taking success at the Dublin Racing Festival. He had been a talking horse since his bumper days and, despite a slow start to his career over hurdles, has readily made good on his early promise to be a strong ante-post favourite for the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.
However, as we saw on his debut, he is far from bomb proof. While he has clearly come into his own on recent starts, there are more potential chinks in his armour than many a recent favourite in this contest, while the avoidance of hurdles in his Grade 1 win at Leopardstown would also be slightly offputting for a horse at his current price.
It is also far from certain that he even lines up here, with an engagement in the Baring Bingham Novices’ Hurdle over 2m5f well within his wheelhouse given he got off the mark over hurdles over 2m4f. With SBK yet to go non runner no bet for the Festival, he is easily avoided.
Instead, stablemate MYSTICAL POWER is taken to be a generous enough price against both the field and other ante-post markets. While available at 5/1 with most firms, SBK go 34/5 about the five-year-old who was challenging for favouritism up until the previous weekend.
Although trainer Willie Mullins is invariably hard to predict regarding his Cheltenham hopefuls and their eventual racing locations, Mystical Power looks much more likely to remain at 2m than Ballyburn does. Equally, he has just as much potential, albeit he is yet to show it on the grandest of stages.
He was born with more potential than arguably any horse likely to run at the Festival given he is the first racing son of Champion Hurdler Annie Power, as well as being by champion sire Galileo. He is also unbeaten as yet, claiming a Galway novice hurdle as far back as last July, while he returned after nearly six months off to kick clear impressively in the Grade 2 Moscow Flyer Novices; Hurdle at Punchestown.
With his more vaunted stablemate’s determined race up in the air, and few others having stood out so significantly on the racecourse, he should be considered a very strong contender to give Ireland an early 1-0 lead in the Prestbury Cup. Overall, at nearly two points higher than most firms with SBK, he looks a solid each-way ante-post bet.
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With Cheltenham continuing to close in, Matty Sutcliffe looks to the novice chases for his third ante-post column looking forward to the 2024 Cheltenham Festival. In particular, he has a Venetia Williams-trained runner on his radar. Published: 5.30pm 6th February (Odds correct at time of publication) Arkle – Djelo (25/1 generally, 33/1 Bet365 NRNB EW)…
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