Cotton Mill is the Reel Deal

We had a horrible day at Aintree yesterday with Island Life unseating when having a great chance of at least a place in the Foxhunters, Kumbeshwar finishing 4th & one spot out of the places before Al Ferof let plenty of punters down with a strangely flat run. We're hoping to gain some compensation on Friday & are sticking with just one runner, Cotton Mill, a horse that let us down at Cheltenham by jinking & unshipping Denis O'Regan when travelling very well alongside the massively backed Simonside & well clear of the rest of the field. We were up at Cheltenham that day & Cotton Mill really was going as well as the winner, who ended up being one of the most impressive of the week, that isn't to say Cotton Mill would definitely have won but it's impressive form all the same. That links in with the favourite for this race as Fingal Bay beat Simonsig at Sandown in December although that race was run at a slow pace & was over 3 furlongs less than this. Fingal Bay is clearly a very high class sort (he won the Grade One Challow at 1/4!) but missed Cheltenham through injury & that has to be a slight concern with the shortish odds available here.

(Cotton Mill is taken to upset Fingal Bay in the Sefton Novices Hurdle)

Cotton Mill's trainer John Ferguson has the had the most incredible debut season, undoubtedly helped thanks to the horses he's been able to procure thanks to his former job as Shiekh Mohamed's bloodstock agent, but that doesn't take away from an outstanding 33% strike rate & a £37 profit to a level £1 staked on every one of his runners. Ferguson has kept that form up all season & his last two runners won on Monday, at odds of 11/2 with Stan James & 5/1 elsewhere it is worth taking a chance that Cotton Mill is as good as he looked at Cheltenham before ducking out, he was unbeaten in three hurdle races before that & hadn't given any indication of a wayward nature.

Selection:
4.15 Aintree - Cotton Mill at 11/2 (Stan James)