Jef­fery Ross

Os­car Whiskey will al­most cer­tain­ly con­test the Cham­pi­on Hur­dle over two miles at Chel­tenham in March, what­ev­er you may hear from train­er Nicky Hen­der­son!

Ap­par­ent­ly, he's al­ready been ruled out of the World Hur­dle, even though Big Bucks is side­lined and sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Lad­broke book­mak­ers have 'Os­car' low­est price in their ante-post bet­ting mar­ket for the Cham­pi­on Hur­dle. They know!

Of course, Hen­der­son will al­most cer­tain­ly be rep­re­sent­ed by im­pres­sive, Christ­mas Hur­dle win­ner Dar­lan but on my time-hand­i­cap, he's not in the same league as Os­car Whiskey and that's some­thing Nicky and Tony Mc­Coy will know!

In­ci­den­tal­ly, Long Run ap­proached some­thing like his best when win­ning the 'King George' but odds-wise, I'm might­i­ly tempt­ed by the price of brave run­ner-up Cap­tain Chis, cur­rent­ly mega-odds for the Gold Cup. Long Run is 7/1 and that's too big!

Swny­mor was un­lucky to lose out in the Fi­nale Ju­nior Hur­dle, falling at the last when Richard John­son asked for 'big one,' when the race was nigh on sewn up. The 'Tri­umph' could be con­so­la­tion be­cause the time was very good!

Comp­ton Rain­bow could gain a long-over­due vic­to­ry in the Maid­en Stakes over a mile of Kemp­ton poly­track, by de­fault!

Hans Adiels­son's charge faces sev­en mod­er­ate ri­vals, all three-year-olds which need to im­prove con­sid­er­ably, if Comp­ton Rain­bow can re­pro­duce any­thing like his best form. Its sig­nif­i­cant that sev­en lbs ap­pren­tice, Ryan Tate has been booked.

Last month, Comp­ton Rain­bow was third in a hand­i­cap over sev­en fur­longs on this course, rid­den by William Car­son, who is oth­er­wise en­gaged at Wolvver­hamp­ton.

Lil­liana is the like­ly favourite, judged on her sec­ond to Sher­rin last week but it was a slow time and some­thing had to chase home the easy win­ner.

By process of elim­i­na­tion and the fact that Tate is an as­pir­ing tal­ent, Comp­ton Rain­bow rep­re­sents a se­ri­ous bet­ting propo­si­tion.

Rest of this pro­gramme and that of Wolver­hamp­ton look dif­fi­cult but we have a strong tip for Mark John­ston-trained new­com­er, Al­ways Fab­u­lous, in the eight-run­ner Maid­en Stakes over sev­en fur­longs.

Sta­ble-com­pan­ion, Aryal rep­re­sent­ed a sim­i­lar sce­nario last week­end but he ran green in the vi­tal clos­ing stages and was nar­row­ly beat­en in a three-way pho­to. Make a note of Aryal and don't miss him next time!

As for Al­ways Fab­u­lous, it's in­con­ceiv­able John­ston would both­er to house a thor­ough­bred in­ca­pable of win­ning this very mod­er­ate race.

SE­LEC­TIONS

RACE 1 (#2) BEST BOY BAR­NEY

RACE 4 (#1) COMP­TON RAIN­BOW

RACE 5 (#14) SAPHIR DE RHEU

RACE 21 (#5) AL­WAYS FAB­U­LOUS