Welcome Unexposed :encouragement:
Good point on pace but will be a big field so something will take them on ?
Pat Keane on melon
Riddle me this, how is Willie Mullins’ Melon still favourite for Cheltenham’s Supreme Novices’ Hurdle?
It’s not as if so-called Melon-mania remains in full flow. If punters, often referred to as “shrewdies” by the bookmakers, were still falling over each other trying to get on then surely the layers would have used the good offices of the Racing Post to have let us know by now.
But no, the silence, from all quarters, is simply deafening, with Melon this week essentially the same price as last week, despite the fact we are now aware his form has more holes in it than the Titanic.
Melon was supposed to have been a big festival plunge, after the ex-French horse made an impressive start in this country when taking a maiden hurdle by 10 lengths at Leopardstown on January 29.
Then last Saturday at Navan his immediate victim, Gordon Elliott’s Broken Soul, made his reappearance.
He was 4-11 to land a bad heat, with the mare, Miss Mardan, the only possible danger. Miss Mardan did just about everything wrong through the race, but passed the post four lengths in front of the runner-up, 50-1 shot King’s War with Broken Soul throwing in the towel up the straight to finish a further five lengths away in third.
So, Miss Mardan beat Broken Soul by almost as far as Melon, but I’ll bet if you offered Miss Mardan at 200-1 for the Supreme Novices’, you’d struggle to find a taker!
The form of the Leopardstown contest is simply worthless and yesterday Ladbrokes were only going 100-30 while Paddy Power (3-1) and Boylesports (11-4) were even meaner.
Now, if the race was today there is no way that Melon would be a worse price than what’s currently on offer and that’s even if he is the final choice of Ruby Walsh.