VEGA IS MEGA

Ben Morgan is tipping Facile to stun his favourited stablemate

Turners Novices Chase 

This looks the most likely destination for the scopey Fact To File as he heads the market at 15/8 but I certainly won’t be rushing in to back him at those prices. He looks like a horse with a great future but we should remember he is very inexperienced having stepped straight up from Bumper company to novice chase company which is a very rare and risky move. Willie Mullins obviously thinks he is good enough but I wasn’t convinced his defeat of Gaelic Warrior last time out was strong form as Gaelic Warrior ran too bad to be true.

At the prices he would be one of the lays of the week but his stablemate, FACILE VEGA looks one of the punts of the week at 7/1. Some may think he hasn’t lived up to the promise he showed at an early stage last year and I would agree but I would caveat that assumption with the words ‘not yet anyway’. The step up in trip looks a no-brainer on what we have seen this season and I think it could bring about chunks of improvement. Everything about him suggests he wants a trip but most importantly the way he maintains the gallop with his long stride suggests this trip should bring out the best in him.

Gaelic Warrior is an interesting one. I remember having a discussion on the group chat with the ‘lads’ just before he got beat out of sight at DRF and I quoted that famous old saying ‘the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result’. It hasn’t happened for him at Cheltenham yet and serious question marks remain over which way he prefers to go around and with that in mind I would rather not back him to bounce back here.