Charlie Lister has strong hand in £7,500 invitation race
Charlie Lister looks to be holding all the aces ahead of the Betfred Select Stakes over 500m at Nottingham tonight and Bandicoot Tipoki can come out on top from his trio to claim the £7,500 first prize.
The selection is on a recovery mission after only finishing third when a hot favourite to win last week’s Ladbrokes Gold Cup final at Monmore but can be forgiven that run after being badly hampered early on from a poor draw in five.
This time he will be donning the all-important red jacket and his last three outings from this box have resulted in fast-time victories.
Bandicoot Tipoki was a Puppy Derby winner over this C&D back in January and has four victories from just five runs here overall, so 11/4 with the sponsors, Coral, Stan James and William Hill is good value.
Lister’s other two runners, Fear Zafonic and Farloe Reason, are also prominent in the betting and the Newark handler is 5/1 with Betfred to claim a 1-2-3 in any order, 2/9 to train the winner and 3/1 to be thwarted in the Sky Sports televised event.
The former has run well when fresh before, notably when taking the Racing Post Juvenile in March, but it is still asking a lot for him to prevail on his first outing since finishing second in the Derby final at the end of May.
Farloe Reason, meanwhile, has been off the track since running flat in the Scottish Derby in June and better value in our book could be Windy Millar at 5/1 with Stan James.
Although very much a nearly-dog in big events, he has the all-round pace to capitalise on any crowding inside from a reasonable trap five draw.
Cabra Boss is also well boxed in the striped jacket, sprang a surprise when beating Bandicoot Tipoki and Windy Millar in a valuable one-off race at at Wimbledon last month and looks a steal at 4/6 to beat stayer Crown Rover in a match bet with Betfred.