4 10/11 were FR or IRE bred
5 10/11 3-5 previous hurdle starts
6 10/11 ran to an RPR of no higher than 124 last time out
7 10/11 carried 11-04 or less to victory (1/48 11-05+)
8 9/11 no more than 2 previous hurdle wins
*Obviously we can't really apply trend 7
until final decs but I would expect the weights to go up no more than 4lbs come final decs so the six on the shortlist should get in on an ideal weight.
Both MESSIRE DES OBEAUX & ARDAMIR fall down on one of the trends so I'll tentatively drop them from the shortlist at present.
That
then leaves...
OCEANE (A King)
PILLARD (JJ O'Neill)
OUR THOMAS (T Easterby)
TOCORORO (G Elliott)
All four are of a certain level of interest although I have to admit I'm not overly keen on Alan King runners in this race as he is 0/17 to date with his runners in the Fred Winter, albeit he has gone close on a couple of occasions. I'm also a little wary of his hurdle runners at the
festival after I uncovered his recent record of 1/73 in festival hurdle contests. In fairness I wouldn't be shocked at all if he improved those figures this year but I want to cut this shortlist down and at this stage I'll tentatively drop OCEANE from my thoughts.
Jonjo O'Neill is another that's yet to score in this race, returning figures of 0/8, 1 place. That's clearly
not a terrible set of figures and I'm probably more concerned by Jonjo's recent form; 0/16 last 14 days, 3/43 last 30 days, 4/69 last 60 days, 6/113 last 90 days... with that in mind I'm less keen on PILLARD and he doesn't look an obvious one to kick Jonjo's season into gear.
Which leaves us with
two...
TOCORORO & OUR THOMAS