Past Winners » Hey Big Spender

30th-Jan-2010

I really like Doctor Pat as a horse, he is a really progressive individual who probably had much more in hand than the winning margin suggests at Newbury last time, and an 8lb hike still leaves him on a mark of just 124, which could still seriously under-estimate his ability. However, Hey Big Spender is also very good, he beat Fistral Beach at Newbury’s Hennessy meeting and was travelling much better than eventual winner Inchidaly Rock last time at Cheltenham before he seemed to me to run out of stamina. He will be much more at home over this two-mile-five-furlong trip than he was over three and a quarter miles then.

Doctor Pat is fast becoming a sexy horse, and he is far too short at 11/4 on what he has done. I wanted to have him on side, but so do a lot of people, apparently, and he is just too short for me now. By contrast, Hey Big Spender is much bigger than he should be in my book at 11/2. He has good form at the track, he proved that he can jump well around it last time, and he is only 8lb higher than he was when he beat Fistral Beach, and that horse has since gone on to frank the form by beating Heathcote at Kempton last time. Ernst Blofeld is interesting, but he needs a greater stamina test for me, the ground may not be that soft today with the frost just slowly coming out of it, as it was at the New Year’s Day meeting. Hey Big Spender is the bet.

HEY BIG SPENDER WON (ADV 11/2 [R4], SP 5/1)