General Sports (14/12) uploaded - Saturday Race Previews uploaded - Cheltenham Festival Week 5 (11/12) uploaded - Andy Richmond’s Beating The Bias (9/12) uploaded - General Sports (7/12) uploaded - Paul's Monthly Blog (6/12) uploaded
6/12/25
Looking ahead to the festive period I have been working on the schedule which will be as follows:
Weeks 5 and 6 of the Cheltenham Festival columns will take place on Thursdays at 7pm as usual on the 11th and 18th with Week 7 being uploaded on New Year’s Day so we are just missing out one week for Christmas Day. I have put up three ante-post recommendations so far and expect more ahead of Christmas in anticipation of horses enhancing their Festival prospects.
With regards to the Race Previews, they will continue as usual on Fridays for the next two weeks with the ‘Christmas Special’ covering the best action from Kempton, Chepstow, Leopardstown, Limerick, Wetherby and Newbury uploaded in one column on Christmas Eve like last season. Then I will return on New Year’s Eve to cover the best racing on New Year’s Day concentrating on Cheltenham and then it's back into the regular Friday columns on January 2nd. If we can have another set of results as good as last year’s Christmas then I’ll be delighted.
Andy Richmond’s Beating The Bias columns on Tuesdays will have a week off on December 30th returning on January 6th with a bumper edition covering the festive action.
The General Sports columns on Sundays will continue uninterrupted throughout Christmas and the New Year. Within those columns I’ll be covering the World Darts Championship from tomorrow with the tournament beginning on Thursday.
In those columns Andy Richmond won’t be missing any of the NFL action as the regular season draws to a close. Aston Villa to finish Top 4 and Top 5 in the Premier League is my only ante-post PL recommendation so far and they have won both games since then so have shortened up and host Arsenal in today’s lunchtime game. I’m told by an Arsenal fan that Villa have been their bogey team of late so let’s hope that continues! Having just checked, it’s six wins for Villa, four for Arsenal and a draw in their last 11 encounters. I’ll also be trying to keep on top of the busy footy action over the festive period which is renowned for its shocks.
Looking back at November, the highlights on the racing front were finding the Troytown and Badger Beers winners at nice prices but we’ve yet to land an ante-post winner from the very few non-Cheltenham Festival selections so far. That said, my back-up, on-the-day fancy of Panic Attack won the Paddy Power Gold Cup. The next ante-post race I’ll be looking is the Welsh Grand National where we found Val Dancer at 20/1 last season.
The Jumps Season has had its knockers in recent years but I have to say that from a general point of view, this has been the best start that I can remember for a long time so I have really been enjoying it. Gavin Cromwell and Venetia Williams may not agree with that given their slow and extra-slow starts but once they start having winners again, prepare for the floodgates to open, maybe over the busy Christmas period.
In terms of the Trainers’ Championship, Dan Skelton is well ahead of where he was last season after his victories in the Paddy Power Gold Cup, Betfair Chase and Coral Gold Cup so is a best-priced 2/7 to win it for the first of many times with Willie Mullins at 5/2. I got my fingers burned on Skelton at around Evens at this time last season so won’t have anything to do with 2/7. Mullins saddling the 1-2-3-5-7 in the Grand National guaranteed him the championship last season and it's been stated elsewhere that he can’t do that again. Wanna bet? What he can do though is still have a better Cheltenham Festival in the big races as last season he failed to win the Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and Stayers’ Hurdle and this season he has the favourite for three of those and the second-favourite for another and who is to say that he can’t win the Grand National for the third year running.
Someone asked me the other day to name who I think are the top 10 jumps trainers right now in order. It took some time but I came back with Willie Mullins miles clear at the top of course and then it got tough. I’d still have Gordon Elliott at number two but not by as far as in the past. Henry de Bromhead would be third and then Gavin Cromwell at four so an Irish 1-2-3-4.
Before you say Dan Skelton should be in there, consider that De Bromhead has won two Gold Cups, two Champion Hurdles, two Champion Chases (four in total), a Stayers’ Hurdle, Ryanair and Grand National in just the last five seasons and Cromwell a Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle and two Stayers’ Hurdles compared to a sole Ryanair for Skelton of the Big 5 championship races at the Festival.
I’d narrowly have Dan ahead of Nicky Henderson now who, like De Bromhead, deals more in quality over quantity but that quintet would be pretty close together. I’d only have the x14 times champion, Paul Nicholls, back in seventh at the bottom of the second division. Mullins is in a league of his own.
At the top of the third division, I considered Ben Pauling, Olly Murphy, Venetia Williams, Sam Thomas, Team Twiston-Davies, Lucinda Russell/Michael Scudamore, Gary/Josh Moore and Jamie Snowden and decided that was the correct order so that’s actually my Top 15 rundown rather than a Top 10 so no room for big names of the past like Team O’Neill, Alan King, David Pipe and Philip Hobbs (and Johnson White), though they of course can still do a job with the right ammo. I’m sure that may spark some debate!
