Ashkazar Race Winner
Well, will history repeat itself ??????

Last year I tipped the winner in this race as a very strong tip. Gaspara had previously won the Sunderlands Imperial Cup at Sandown the Saturday before the festival, and she came here and duly obliged, winning connections a cool £75000 in bonuses for winning the 2 races.

This year connections are trying for a similar coup with Ashkazar. Arguably this is a much better horse. He is by the mighty Saddlers Wells out of a Darshaan mare, and was good enough to contest a group 1 race on the flat over in France. He has only had the 4 runs over hurdles, winning 3 of them. his only defeat was in his 2nd ever run over timber and that was at the hands of antepost favourite for the triumph hurdle Franchoek. Since then he hacked up at Sandown in a nice little novice hurdle there, and then on Saturday cruised home in the ultra competitive Sunderlands handicap hurdle where he won by an easy 3 lengths, but was value for a fair bit more.

The Pipe team won't have put the horse in for this race unless they thought he could do himself justice, and they have opted for this as a much easier option than the Triumph. In my boo there aren't too many in with a shout here and has River Liane to beat. Bit I'm going for a bit of history repeating itself here, and will be having a nice big bet.

Pick : Ashkazar to win 5.20 Cheltenham
Odds : 4.00
Stake : 9 / 10
Bookmaker : Coral
Date : 2008-03-11