I’ve backed FIREFOX for Ballymore success off the back of his defeat of Willie Mullins’s Ballyburn in a maiden hurdle. It’s pretty clear he and Down Memory Lane are the two talking horses from Gordon Elliott’s yard this season and I’m not expecting anything else to come from the leftfield from either his yard or from any UK based trainer, as Nicky Henderson almost always sends his best to the Supreme. Willie Mullins has already seen his best bumper horses defeated this season and there’s more than a hint the cupboard might be a little bare in the novice hurdler department this season. Ballyburn trades favourite for the Ballymore ahead of Firefox but the Mullins horse is a keen traveller and the step up won’t benefit that, whereas I’d be surprised if we see Firefox over two miles again because he looks like a stayer and there was talk he could follow the Ginto route to the Albert Bartlett earlier in the season. He looks far too classy for the three miler and I think the market has his Ballymore price all wrong where he trades bigger than Ballyburn. The Betfair Exchange is clearly pointing to the Ballymore over the Supreme or Bartlett and 10/1 antepost quotes should be taken.
1pt ante-post win Firefox @10/1, Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle, 13th March
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