Celestial to find his feet over further?

Celestial Halo: Staying chaser in the making?

"..Celestial Halo, just trying to press on as they reach the 4th....he just reaches for it a bit....and he's GONE!"

Not my words obviously but those of commentator Richard Hoiles as CELESTIAL HALO made a less than perfect start to his chasing career.

In fairness to the horse he had jumped well enough up to that point, maybe not the quickest horse through the air we've ever seen but certainly looked to be warming to the task.

Most bookies dropped him a couple of points in the Arkle Chase ante-post lists and Ladbrokes went what can only be described as "a bit mental" by removing the horse completely from their Arkle ante-post list!

It wasn't an ideal start to his chasing life and there is a worry that he will treat his obstacles with a certain degree of disdain (he had a similar trait over hurdles at times) but was yesterday's performance really worthy of removing him from the ante-post list all together?

Paul Nicholls himself has expressed a certain level of concern stating that he isn't 100% certain that as Celestial Halo is flat bred there is no guarantee he will take to fences.

So lets look at the stats.

Here are how the Galileo offspring have taken to the National Hunt game - 

Hurdles

57/421 (13.5% win S/R) - LSP -£148.45

Those are OK stats but nothing to shout about.

My opinion has always been that the Galileo lot are better over further than the minimum trip and the following trend would appear to highlight that fact - 

Galileo hurdlers when racing between 2m5f and 2m7f

13/54 (24% win S/R) - LSP +£29.79

Quite an improvement on the general stats and an angle we can add to the portfolio.

However, with regards to Celestial Halo it's really the chasing stats we are concerned with.

Chasers

6/27 (22% win S/R) - LSP +£2.06

Again these are OK stats but it's really a small sample size we are working with and all 6 wins have come from only 2 horses (Fire and Rain & Valerius).

Once more I can narrow these stats to highlight the preference of the Galileo lot over further - 

Galileo chasers over 2m5f and further

6/20 (30% win S/R) - LSP +£9.06

All chase winners falling into that further distance range.

CELESTIAL HALO is obviously a talented beast and it would be no surprise to see him land a couple of chases at the shorter trips but long term I believe he has the makings of a staying chaser; if he learns to respect his fences then he has the potential to be a top class staying chaser!

Three others that hit the deck on chase debut

Celestial Halo isn't the only top class novice chaser to taste the turf on his chasing debut. Check out the following three horses who either fell or unseated on their chase debut -

MOSCOW FLYER (Fell at Fairyhouse on chase debut)

Went on to win the Arkle, 2 Champion Chases and multiple Grade 1s.

LOOKS LIKE TROUBLE (Unseated at Warwick on chase debut)

Went on to win RSA Chase and Cheltenham Gold Cup.

MR MULLIGAN (Fell at Newbury on Chase debut)

Went on to win the G2 Reynoldstown Chase and the Cheltenham Gold Cup)

I would say Celestial Halo is in good company there! 

Time will tell if he fulfils his chasing potential but it's certainly too early to be writing the 6yo off just yet.

NTF Bumper analysis

I'm still dedicated to nailing this angle. I've been looking at the couple of bumpers that have been run since the last analysis I produced and I think we may be making life to hard for ourselves; a simpler angle may be needed.

I'm beginning to think that trainers look at bumpers and certain tracks in 2 ways - 

1 - They target certain track for their better Bumper horses i.e. they have tracks where they place their bumper horses to win, not just to give them racecourse experience (the primary aim of bumpers)

2 - They target certain tracks with the sole purpose of giving their horse racecourse experience; they know certain horses will improve once out of the bumper ranks and they have tracks they prefer for allowing their charges to 'learn the ropes'

I still think we need to be targeting trainers that have an overall decent record in bumpers and I also think we need to be targeting jockeys that have a decent record in bumpers, possibly the jockey angle should be specific to certain tracks.

With this in mind it's time to attack the bumper at today's Worcester meeting.

Two runners catch my eye -  

TWIRLING MAGNET 

J J O'Neil

Worc Bump S/R - 4/15 (27%) -£7.06 Overall Bump S/R - 38/248 (15%) -£117.18

A P McCoy

Worc Bump S/R - 7/24 (29%) -£0.93 Overall Bump S/R - 70/373 (19%) -£144.83

DIVINE FOLLY

Mrs Lawney Hill

Worc Bump S/R - 2/6 (33%) +£41.00 Overall Bump S/R - 4/16 (25%) +£44.33

D Bass

Worc Bump S/R - 1/5 (20%) -£2.38 Overall Bump S/R - 4/19 (21%) -£6.18

In the long run following the McCoy/ O'Neill bumper train will lead us to the poor house but the losses are much less at Worcester so we would be foolish to ignore TWIRLING MAGNET.

One concern is the sire stats -

Bumper stats - Imperial Ballet - 4-85 (5%) LSP -£72.90

DIVINE FOLLY is of big interest. Mrs Lawney Hill obviously targets her small string at this venue and jockey David Bass is a young man I think has a huge future ahead of him. 

Sire stats are also slightly more promising for the 5yo -

Bumper stats - Kotashaan - 5-45 (11%) LSP -£16.25

These are the 2 I feel we should be concentrating on for today.

Ben (NTF)

p.s. The doors are now OPEN for the NTF subs service http://www.narrowthefield.co.uk/ they will close again on Friday evening at the very latest.