How To Bet £20 on the Betfair Exchange Stayers' Handicap Hurdle

Few will be looking beyond A Plus Tard in the Betfair Chase at Haydock on Saturday and he seems likely to go off the shortest-priced for the £200,000 feature since Kauto Star started at 2/5 for the 2008 renewal.

Most people assumed that all Kauto Star had to do to win for the third successive year was turn up, but he was already in trouble when parting company with Sam Thomas the final fence. Snoopy Loopy, outsider of the six runners at 33/1, went on to gain the most unlikeliest of victories and would never win again.

That should serve as a lesson that races are not won on paper and that A Plus Tard will have to be somewhere near his best if he is to beat Protekotorat, Bristol De Mai, Eldorado Allen and Frodon. It was good ground when he was imperious in the race last year but it could get attritional at the weekend with soft going, at the least, on the cards as there is plenty of rain forecast for Merseyside over the coming days.

I still fancy A Plus Tard will get the job done – he’s got at least 16lb in hand on official ratings – but perhaps it won’t be pretty as 12 months ago, when Rachael Blackmore barely had to move a muscle.

For ante-post betting purposes, it’s the three-mile Betfair Exchange Stayers' Handicap Hurdle that makes most appeal.

The bookmakers have predictably got Run For Oscar at the top of their betting as he bruised plenty of them when coasting to victory in the Cesarewitch last month. That was something of a long-term plan accomplished but his record points to him being better on the Flat and, perhaps no coincidence, decent ground serving him well.

He hasn’t run over hurdles for more than a year, when disappointing over 3m at Wetherby, and I’m far from convinced that the combination of humping 12st over a dozen flights on deep going is what he wants.

By contrast, GOOD RISK AT ALL seems in his element when the mud is flying and the general 6-1 chance, trained by jockey-turned-trainer Thomas, makes plenty of appeal.

He never ran on the Flat but he did contest three bumpers – scoring in good style at Cheltenham before following up under a penalty at Newbury in February of last year. Bumpers come in all shapes and sizes but you cannot quibble with the quality of that one as the next pair home were I Like To Move It and Gelino Bello, with Might I back in fifth. He was conceding that trio between 4lb and 13lb, too.

Good Risk At All has continued to flourish in six starts over hurdles, especially since being stepped up to beyond 2m and switched to handicap company. He bolted up over 2m3f on heavy ground at Ascot in February and won with similar ease over 2m4f in deep ground at Carlisle last time when making is return equipped with a first-time tongue-tie. In between, the Coral Cup at Cheltenham had been the plan but he didn’t make the cut and instead ran in Grade One company at Aintree, when he was perhaps over the top and ran below-par.

It could be that Good Risk At All still makes up into a top-level performer but, rated 143, it makes sense to first exhaust the handicap avenue, not least when first prize here is £71,000. The one niggle is whether he will stay 3m but it’s been a case of the further the better in most of his races and any horse who breezes home over 2m 4f on heavy ground at a stiff track such as Carlisle must have prospects of staying 3m on the level terrain at Haydock.

Might I has met Good Risk At All twice and the score between them stands at 1/1. The Harry Fry-trained six-year-old developed into a good novice at up to 2m4f last season and his breeding points to him being well suited by a stiffer test. He lacks a recent run but he’s won first time up in each of his two seasons (on soft/heavy going) and commands plenty of respect. Like Good Risk At All, he’s available at 6/1 and he warrants a saver.

Among those at bigger prices, Brinkley (16-1) and Imperial Aura (20-1) catch the eye. The former, a mudlark who stays all day, is probably going to need the ground to be verging on waterlogged, though, while the latter comes with obvious risks after his various problems. That said, he was taking along when falling a mile out in the Betfair Chase a year ago and the handicapper may have taken a liberty in letting him run off a mark of only 143.

£17 win on Good Risk At all at 6-1 with bet 365

£3 win on Might I at a general 6-1