Cheltenham Festival - Day Four – Copybet

Gavin Cromwell’s horses have been running well this week and it is worth backing The Passing Wife to land the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle.

Cromwell knows what it takes to win this as he was responsible for 2021 scorer Vanillier and it was interesting to see this horse supplemented for the Grade 1 novice when his handicap mark for the Martin Pipe looked tempting.

Historically, it pays to have a battle-hardened sort with form in 3m point-to-points on your side in this race and The Passing Wife beat useful stayer Long Draw on his sole run between the flags.

The Albert Bartlett will be the selection’s 12th race under rules, so he’ll have an experience advantage over many of these, while the fact he’s spent most of his career for Cromwell running over two miles means it’s unlikely we’ve seen anywhere near his best.

The seven-year-old looked better the further he went when bolting up on heavy ground over 2m3f at Punchestown in January and I’m expecting another career best for this greater emphasis on stamina.

Secret Squirrel has clearly been brought forward steadily with the spring festivals in mind and Hughie Morrison’s runner can cause a surprise in the County Hurdle.

Morrison has enjoyed plenty of success with the likes of Not So Sleepy in handicap hurdles in recent seasons and Secret Squirrel won the valuable Sovereign at Windsor for the stable last term.

He’s entitled to strip fitter for his third in the Kingwell at Wincanton last month on his reappearance and that was a creditable effort. He’d never encountered such testing conditions and the race-fit pair ahead of him were always going to be tough nuts to crack.

Winner Alexei franked the form by finishing fourth in the Champion Hurdle on Tuesday, while runner-up Rubaud is mustard in that sort of race around a tight circuit.

Secret Squirrel will relish getting back on a sound surface and is well accustomed to the demands of a big-field handicap hurdle. He can loosen Dan Skelton and Willie Mullins’ stranglehold on the County.

Paul Nolan’s Cheltenham runners are always worth a look and Farfromnowhere may be going under the radar in the Martin Pipe.

Nolan is applying a first-time tongue-tie to Farfromnowhere and that convinces me she may have been unable to show her true form due to a breathing issue over fences when last seen.

The mare split Kala Conti and Jade De Grugy in a Cork beginners’ event only two starts ago, so she’s clearly talented, an assertion backed up by her convincing five-length victory over a Grade 2 calibre mare in Dream On Baby at Listowel in September.

This is a conditional riders’ race and few in the weighing room are more talented than Conor Stone-Walsh, who looks an eyecatching booking. His mount has been dismissed too quickly for my liking and Nolan is expected to have her firing on all cylinders following a 76-day break.