Saturday Racing Tips at Newcastle and Newbury | Racing Lee

It looks a straight shootout between the market leaders, and I think Sir Gino can emerge victorious. He’s four from four, including when winning well in France beating Salvador Mundi. He won his first start in the UK by 14 lengths, before stepping up the beat recent Greatwood Hurdle winner Burdett Road by a going away 10 lengths. He missed the Cheltenham Festival only through the fact his stable were under a cloud, and I reckon they still weren’t back firing on all cylinders when he bagged the Grade One Anniversary Hurdle at the Aintree Grand National meeting. He won that easily, beating Kargese.

Kargese followed her Aintree second to Sir Gino with a Grade One win at the Punchestown Festival, and had the subsequent Galway Hurdle winner, and Grade Two third Nuburgring back in third.

His form is yet to match his main rival Mystical Power, but I think he can step up to the top table and take the Grade One prize back to Seven Barrows.

He won a Listed hurdle race on soft ground a few years ago and arrives here on a good mark. He was sent chasing and travelled well before unseating in a Grade Two and, started last season off a mark of 138.

He arrived last time off a layoff, and having travelled well into the race, he fell at the last when looking likely to challenge. He’s now off 133, and he’s a four-time winner from 13 runs, with three of them on soft going, which will aid his cause here. He’s well capable of exploiting this mark for his in-form yard.

He started off life running second to the talented Grade Two winner, Salver, who was last seen running third in the Triumph Hurdle. He was beaten less than three lengths by Salver, and they pulled 22 lengths clear of the third. He was then just held for third, when running fourth behind Grade One winner Sir Gino, and Greatwood Hurdle winner, Burdett Road. That was a Grade Two at Cheltenham, and he followed up by winning as he liked at Market Rasen by 14 lengths.

His final run of four to date came at Kempton in May where he kept on into third that day, but the winner bolted up last time out and had run in a Grade Two prior. The second has also won since, and the form of his runs to date would suggest his current mark of 120, and low weight, would mean he’s got in lightly here in his first time handicap.