/ Timeform / 11 February 2011 / Leave a Comment 
Newbury: Venue for Britain's best jumping on Saturday
"... the likes of Irish raider Final Approach, last year's winner Get Me Out of Here and the Henderson pair Solix and Soldatino are all likely to contribute to what promises to be a hotly contested affair."
Timeform look ahead to the weekend's best racing...
Newbury hosts one of its best meetings of the National Hunt season on Saturday, and the hottest betting heat on the card there is the Totesport Trophy, the most valuable handicap hurdle run in Britain all season. Alan King has a notably strong hand in his bid to win the race for the first time and his horse Walkon currently heads the market at [9.0]. The apparent King second-string Salden Licht is also prominent in the betting at [10.5] , while the likes of Irish raider Final Approach, last year's winner Get Me Out of Here and the Henderson pair Solix and Soldatino are all likely to contribute to what promises to be a hotly contested affair.
The card at Newbury also features a couple of Grade 2 chases that could well have implications on next month's Festival. The two-mile Game Spirit has lost some of its sheen after Woolcombe Folly, who had been odds-on for the race, misses it after a bad scope. Gold Cup contenders get their chance to shine in the three-mile Aon Chase, and while this year's Aon isn't obviously going to have a great impact on the Blue Riband, it does still feature some high-class chasers, not least Grade 1 winner What A Friend and King George runner-up Riverside Theatre, the pair currently disputing favouritism for the race.
The day's other two jumps fixtures in Britain take place at Ayr and Warwick and it is the latter track that stages what is arguably the more intriguing meeting thanks to the presence on the card of the Grade 2 Kingmaker Novices' Chase over two miles. Nicky Henderson won the race last year with Long Run, and he has another potentially top-class prospect to go to war with this year in the shape of current Arkle favourite Finian's Rainbow.
The two remaining fixtures in Britain both take place on the polytrack, at Lingfield and Wolverhampton respectively.
There is also high-class jumping over the Irish Sea on Saturday as Leopardstown stages its rearranged Hennessy meeting, which features no fewer than four Grade 1s. The feature is the Hennessy itself and it has attracted most of Ireland's best staying chasers, including last year's winner Joncol, who is the favourite to repeat his success of 12 months ago. Willie Mullins is doubly represented by Cooldine and Kempes, while Money Trix and The Listener look the best of the trio of British raiders.
The remaining three Grade 1s at Leopardstown are all for novices; Mikael d'Haguenet is arguably the most interesting runner in the 21-furlong Dr P. J. Moriarty Novice Chase, while the same connections' Zaidpour will be out to regain the winning thread in the two-and-a-quarter-mile Deloitte Novice Hurdle. 11 runners will face the starter in the other Grade 1 on the card, the Spring Juvenile Hurdle. Among them, Paul Nicholls' ex-French four-year-old Indian Daudaie sets the standard, though there is plenty of potential among the home challenge, not least in the shape of Dermot Weld's filly Unaccompanied.
Sunday is a jumps only day in Britain and Ireland. There are three meetings in total; Exeter and Hereford both race in Britain, while the Irish action is at Navan, where there are three Grade 2 events on the card.
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Timeform look ahead to the weekend's best racing......
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