Exeter – Friday 25th February

Times have been very strange recently and a few things have cropped up over the last few days that have led me to respect what we have and to cherish it. The awful circumstances surrounding those over in Russia and Ukraine pale the significance of others into the shade, while a tragic loss close to my family has left us in a state of numbness. 

As much as I hope everyone enjoys reading these pieces on a daily basis, I would strongly urge that the first thing you can do today is to make sure your friends and family members are all doing okay, and you can give them any sort of help they may require. 

With this in mind, I hope people can respect that I will be keeping this, and some of the coming articles brief. 

The 3.20 at Exeter is a long distance handicap hurdle for horses rated between 0-120 and I will be siding on this occasion with Crossing the Bar. Having ran quite well in a few novice hurdles, this horse was a warm order on handicap debut when failing to raise a gallop and being pulled up. He put his followers back in the limelight last time however, when making amends in facile fashion at Ffos Las. He has gone up nine pounds for that effort, but he should be able to cope with that rise. At a price of 7/1 with Paddy Power, I would advise backing each way. 

And the 3.50 race is the feature race on the card at Exeter, which is the Devon National over 3m6f, and as always sees a very competitive field taking their chance. The chance of last year’s winner, Samuel Jackson, is there for all to see and this could well have been the plan all along, but he can be tricky at times and not always guaranteed to perform even when you want him to. 

Classic Ben makes most appeal in this race for me and I would be hoping he can make amends for those that had followed him in last time and were cruelly denied by a bad mistake at the third last fence. I think he would have won that day, but he has been given time to freshen up, and should run a big race. At a price of 15/2 with Paddy Power, I will also be backing each way.