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Happy New Year to all our readers and here’s to a lucky and profitable 2010! The first action of the year as far as the book is concerned is the Blue Square Tolworth Hurdle at Sandown, although at the time of writing the weather may well intervene.

Blue Square TOLWORTH HURDLE – Sandown, January 2nd 2010

Just the five runners declared and let’s skip through them individually.

GHIZAO represents the champion trainer and that earns him a positive mark as Paul Nicholls has won the last three renewals of this event. He also finished in the top two last time out which is another plus point and with just one previous hurdles start under his belt, and just three in total in his career, clearly hits the ‘lightly raced’ trend too.

OSCAR WHISKEY puts his unbeaten career record the line after two bumper wins and a debut success over timber. This lightly raced individual is a five-year-old and this age group have won five of the last eight renewals. Nicky Henderson hasn’t really got a record to shout about in this race though and that is a worry.

SALDEN LICHT won a big field maiden at Newbury on his first outing for Alan King and it is interesting that connections are stepping him straight into Grade 1 company after that.

WILLIAM HOGARTH is the most experienced member of the field with seven previous outings over hurdles already in the bag. That counts against him but he is a five-year-old and finished in the top two last time out so strictly speaking doesn’t performer too badly on the trends.

SUPERNOVERRE has raced twice over hurdles thus far with his best result coming at this track in December when he finished second. He is the youngest member of the field so enjoys a healthy weight-for-age allowance.

CONCLUSION

These small fields often produce tight results and that’s the case once more. GHIZAO and OSCAR WHISKY are probably tied on the trends and splitting them isn’t easy. GHIZAO was beaten on his hurdles debut by a Nicky Henderson trained runner, General Miller, who was in here at the overnight stage. However the fact the stable have gone with OSCAR WHISKEY is interesting. At a push I’d have to give the nod to GHIZAO though on account of the good record the yard has in the contest. It’s very tight though.