12:35 – Cooking Fat 14/1 E/W
The 613 days absence may put a few people off, but there are plenty of reasons to expect a big run today.
Pauline Robson has an exceptional record with her runners returning from a lengthy break. She has a 32% S/R with runners returning from a break of 300 days or more; 10 wins (& 6 placed) from 32 runners for an A/E of 1.61. Incredibly, she has a 38% S/R with runners returning from a break of 600+ days although that’s only from a sample of 8 runners. Regardless, it’s clear that she’s able to ready one after a break.
His former trainer, Dianne Sayer, always thought a lot of this horse abs she was quoted as saying that “he is a real talent…. he likes to be fresh so he won’t run again in a hurry”.
Brian Hughes takes the ride and it’s worth noting that he’s ridden him to 3 of his 4 wins under rules. He’s been in great of form of late and the booking of the champion jockey should be considered a signal of intent.
Pauline Robson has only sent 7 runners to Doncaster since 2016; 3 of them won and another finished a close 2nd.
Cooking Fat is on his last winning mark (fences) and his last win over hurdles came off a 5lb higher mark. The cheekpieces go back on having been replaced by blinkers on his last 5 starts. When the cheekpieces were first applied, he was running a great race behind Mister Whitaker before falling late on and he won when blinkers went on for the first time. Hopefully the rejigging of the headgear can help here.
Plenty of runners in this lineup have something to prove and as a result, Cooking Fat looks like an attractive each way option with just 9 runners lining up.
overandclear.com 