'We have a nice team for this' - Better Days Ahead leads Gordon Elliott's seven-strong squad in Martin Pipe

Few can argue the festival ends with a bang as the Martin Pipe tends to be a hotbed of top talent. Get to know these horses because history tells us we are bound to see a future Grade 1 performer or two.

Of the 23 runners, four are novices dipping their toes in handicaps for the first time. They are Quai De Bourbon, Better Days Ahead, Answer To Kayf and What’s Up Darling. For fellow novices Waterford Whispers and Sequestered, this is just a second handicap outing.

Note that all five of the subsequent Grade 1 winners to have obliged in the past decade (Don Poli, Killultagh Vic, Champagne Classic, Galopin Des Champs and Banbridge) were novices of equally low mileage.

There have been more than a few murmurings about Waterford Whispers on the preview night circuit. The same is true of Quai De Bourbon. However, the market has factored that into their prices. It is ill advised to take short odds in a race as fiercely competitive as the Martin Pipe.

It's not only the novices who look very interesting.

No Ordinary Joe, bidding to give Nicky Henderson a much-needed boost at the end of a horrible festival, finished second to Iroko in last year's running and is just 1lb higher after shaping as if coming to the boil at Kempton 20 days ago, just three days before the Cheltenham weights were unveiled. 

While he went into many notebooks that day, Jason The Militant understandably went under the radar when finishing an uninspiring fifth at Newcastle in a race light years from this one.

However, it's interesting that Phil Kirby now reaches for first-time blinkers and, whatever lies in opposition, it's hard to believe anything will be better handicapped if he can be brought back to his best.

He was rated 154 when he joined Kirby 14 months ago and finished midfield in a trial for the County Hurdle and ran in the Champion Hurdle on his first two runs for the yard. He is now 31lb lower.
Race analysis by Robbie Wilders

RP Recommends: how to bet on the Martin Pipe

By Tom Park, audience editor

I was surprised to see just one firm going six places and the rest offering five for this competitive affair. Sky Bet are once again the firm to offer the most places. The one who catches the eye at a big price is Better Days Ahead, who ran well behind Supreme winner Slade Steel a couple of starts ago.

• RP Recommends: Sky Bet

Elliott showcases his depth

Nearly a third of the field for this race are housed at one yard as trainer Gordon Elliott showcases his strength in depth as he attempts to win this race for a third time.

Elliott’s stranglehold of the final fields for races this year has been one of the themes of the season. In November, he saddled 14 of the 20 runners in the Troytown Handicap Chase at Navan, which he won with Coko Beach, while the trainer could have as many as ten of the 34 runners in next month’s Randox Grand National at Aintree.

In this race, Elliott has seven runners representing him. In comparison, British trainers have mustered a mere ten runners between them for it.

Gordon Elliott: well represented in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap HurdleCredit: Edward Whitaker

Elliott’s two winners came courtesy of Champagne Classic in 2017 and Blow By Blow in 2018. This year, his team is led by Noel and Valerie Moran’s Better Days Ahead, whose form ties in closely with Slade Steel and Asian Master, the first and fourth respectively in Tuesday’s Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

Elliott said: “We've a nice team for the Martin Pipe. A few of them are fairly exposed and the likes of Magic Tricks faces a tough task off top weight, as does Hollow Games who has been a bit in and out this season, but has ran well in this race before.

“Better Days Ahead is a horse we have always thought a bit of so maybe he has a chance with Danny [Gilligan] aboard. What's Up Darling is another nice novice, while Yeats Star has been very consistent.

“Stuzzikini and Mel Monroe need to up their games, but you couldn't rule either out entirely.”

What they say

Paul Nicholls, trainer of Sonigino
He's in a good place and I think he'll like the ground. I do think, though, that there will be horses in the race with 6lb, 8lb or even 10lb in hand, whereas our horse is now literally on the limit of his handicap mark.

Dan Skelton, trainer of Jay Jay Reilly
The more rain the better for him, he wants real soft ground. He won a Lanzarote on that so fingers crossed for him.

Paul Gilligan, trainer of Sequestered
He's in great form. He ran well at the Dublin Racing Festival and this drop in trip will suit him better.

Gary Moore, trainer of Teddy Blue
I think he’d have a reasonable chance of running well, albeit he wouldn’t want it too soft. We’ll have to see how much rain falls as he is a better horse on better ground.

James Moffatt, trainer of Bingoo
I’m really looking forward to running him. The ground is going to be in his favour unlike Kelso last time where it’d dried out too much. The jockey looked after him that day and we’ve trained him accordingly since. He’s very fresh and he’s like a time bomb. We’ll ride him cold and he’ll finish strong.

David Pipe, trainer of Thanksforthehelp
He had a few issues that kept him off the course this year and he needed his comeback at Chepstow. Hopefully that will have brought him on to where we want him to be, but this is a very tough race. What you could say about him is that he is at the right end of the handicap.

Read more of Friday's previews: 

Willie Mullins saddles more than half the field but which is the stable first string? 

Can Dan Skelton land another County Hurdle? Key quotes for the big final day handicap 

Can Captain Teague step up in trip and repel powerful Willie Mullins contingent in Grade 1 Albert Bartlett? 

Galopin Des Champs goes for a famous Gold Cup double - but what does Willie Mullins make of his chances? 

'He's better and stronger now' - last year's runner-up Its On The Line bids to go one better in Hunter Chase 

Dinoblue has the stamp of a champion and sets a high bar in much-maligned Mares' Chase 

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