Sam Twiston-Davies’ William Hill Blog: A run under Burdett Road’s belt before Fighting Fifth

William Hill ambassador Sam Twiston-Davies previews his weekend rides at both Newton Abbot and Kempton, including a return to obstacles for Burdett Road.

Saturday, Newton Abbot

I kick things off on Saturday with Hot To Go (2:15pm), who was an expensive point-to-pointer and whose homework has been very pleasing. This looks like a nice starting point for him. Hopefully, we’ll have some nice ground. We’re starting him over the minimum trip, but this is definitely the right race for him.

Tax For Max (3:35pm) ran for us at Market Rasen recently. Hopefully he has come on for that run as he’s an interesting horse. I thought he would’ve hung in there a little bit more at the end, but he did make a slight mistake, so hopefully he will have built on it, and we’ll learn a little bit more about him.

I then have Not Now (5:55pm) in the bumper. He’s done lots of work and is a really straightforward horse. Being his debut on the track, there isn’t much to say about him, but this is definitely a learning curve for him. We just want to educate him to help him go forward for the future.

Sunday, Kempton

I have a nice book of rides at Kempton on Sunday, starting with Gabriel’s Getaway (3:16pm) for Anthony Honeyball. He was disappointing at Punchestown when I last sat on him in a race in May. He made a mistake early, and he was completely out of rhythm and out of sync. He was never really happy.
He’s since had a wind op and has been schooling really nicely. Anthony is really happy with him, so hopefully he’ll run a nice race. All things suit him; trip, track and there looks to be lots of pace in the race.

Then I go on to Burdett Road (3:50pm) in the four-runner Listed race. This pretty much looks a two-horse race between him and Rubaud. Obviously, there are a couple of other competitors in there, but you would hope it would be between the two of those. Fingers crossed he’s got the form to go and win this.
It will be good to get a run under his belt before potentially going to the Fighting Fifth at the end of November. A lot of the others often go to Newcastle without a run, so hopefully that will only be a positive.

I finish Sunday off with Safe Destination (4:25pm), who hasn’t been reassessed yet, and he’s escaped a penalty because he won a conditional jockeys’ race. So, we thought it was one of those situations where it is a risk to run him again quickly, but we may as well take our chance while he’s in good form and before the handicapper looks at him.