Opening day at Chepstow, Future Champions Day building at Newmarket and a strong card at York. We went through the lot in our Friday preview, and this is what actually happened, race by race, in time order.
13:22 Chepstow, Wasdell Group Novices Hurdle, Division I
Ten runners over 2m16y on good to soft, and Cooltobecareless won it very impressively indeed for Dan Skelton and Harry Skelton, sent off evens.
He was always going really well in behind the long time leader No Hard Feelings, and when it looked as though it was coming down to a match between the front 2 in the market, he had plenty left. Herbies Sock ran on for 2nd at 9/2 and Kind Intention ran on for 3rd at 9/1, but neither of them was getting to him. The jump at the last was enormous.
The one to note underneath is King's Scholar, rated 123 for Olly Murphy and was sent off 2/1. He finished 4th. That was the one everybody expected to be involved at the finish and he was not.
Our view on where Cooltobecareless goes next: give him another run in a novice hurdle rather than diving straight into graded company. Go and win another race over hurdles with him first. You can see the chaser in him already, and there is no hurry.
One thing to head off, because we have already seen it said. His last run before this was the Grade 2 bumper at Aintree in April, where he was 12th, beaten 52.25 lengths, behind his own stablemate Forthfactor. The conclusion people are drawing is that Forthfactor must therefore be enormously good.
We would not read it that way at all. Bumpers and hurdle races are completely different tests. Plenty of horses simply do not want a bumper and others thrive in them, and Cooltobecareless looks very much like the first sort. He is a far better horse over hurdles than he ever was in a bumper, and what you watched on Friday was a horse finally in the right sphere rather than a line through anything else.
The rest of the day, including the Welsh Champion Hurdle, the Challenge Stakes, the Fillies Mile and a really unlucky run at York, is below for Premium and Pro members.