Oh Crick

25th-Feb-2012

The front three in the market are all some way under-priced for me here – Arctic Ben has to prove he is up to this higher grade and that he can cope with competition for the lead, Buffalo Bob has to prove he has the pace for two miles, he hasn’t run over this trip since his novice hurdle days over three years ago and he would probably have been well beaten but for Charingworth’s fall at the second last at Ayr on his last run, and Educated Evans ran no sort of race on his previous run at Warwick, taking very little interest from the start, and he comes from a yard out of form ...

Oh Crick has continued to slip down the handicap, he is on his lowest mark for nearly three years (4lb lower than when we backed him at Cheltenham in November), and he will take advantage of this handicap mark before too long. He has good from on soft ground – he won a novice hurdle on heavy, he finished third to Twist Magic in a Victor Chandler Chase on soft ground (in front of Well Chief) and he ran his best race of the last season and a half when he finished third to Cornas in a handicap chase at Sandown last season on soft ground, so conditions should not bother him today.

He is 11lb better off with Rileyev from their run at Newbury when he was beaten four and a half lengths by Venetia Williams’s horse, that was a useful run from him in first-time cheekpieces, and he is wearing blinkers for the first time this afternoon. They could spark him back into life, and if they have any beneficial effect at all, that could easily see Oh Crick go close today, especially with his yard going so well.

OH CRICK WON (ADV 17/2, SP 9/2)

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