Listowel – Monday 6th June

It has been a decent start to the month of June with a few winners going in nicely and it was perhaps a better move to sway from the Kilbeggan card yesterday, which looked tricky and proved to be with some strange winners throughout the day. Listowel have held two days of flat racing over the weekend but now move onto the jumps action for this Bank Holiday Monday, and there are two selections throughout the card that I am very interested in having a flutter on. 

Starting with the 3.10 race, which is the 2m4f handicap hurdle and is for horses rated between 80-102. Prince Zaltar leads the way in the betting and rightly so given his last two runs, which have both been solid efforts. However, I don’t think he has much in hand from the handicapper at this moment and he will have to improve again to defy topweight. Instead, I’m going to be siding with the mare who did us all a good turn last time out at Limerick. That horse is Shean Glory, who broke her maiden tag with a very impressive jumping display around this trip. It had been a long time coming, given she was a long-standing maiden, but I am hopeful that that win could have given her the confidence to go on and succeed more. Based solely off her previous run, I don’t think a six pound hike from the assessor is over the top. With that in mind, I think a price of 13/2 with Bet365, who are paying out five places in this competitive race, looks a fair each way price.

The second race I’ll be covering for this afternoon is the following race, which is also a 2m4f handicap hurdle and this higher graded race is no easier to solve given there are plenty in here with some chance. Another horse that gave us a winning day last time out was Fest Deiz, who is the horse I fancy in this race to potentially double up, despite having to revert to hurdles after winning over fences last time out. He put in a rout last time out at Kilbeggan, when smashing Jack Hackett away, who has subsequently gone on to win yesterday at the same track, and posted a RPR of 140, despite only running off a mark of 118. He has been given a fair hike in those weights, so reverts to hurdles – where he is running today off 125. That seems fair given his previous hurdling form and he is a 3 time winner in this sphere, so we know he can operate over the smaller obstacles and should not be out of place in this contest whatsoever. Given he arrives here in such good form, which is more than can be said for some of his opposition, who are on a small bit of a retrieval mission, he should be afforded the greatest deal of respect. At a price of 6/1 generally, with 4 places available everywhere – he should be backed each way.