Racing expert Dave Massey is back with three horse racing tips ahead of Haldon Gold Cup Day 2025. Read his exclusive thoughts each and every week with kwiff.
Horse Racing Tips: Haldon Gold Cup Day 2025
A tricky event to try and solve, with one or two unexposed sorts that could be really fancied were it not for the fact their yards aren’t in form yet, and most are needing the run. Analiese comes top of that particular list; she can definitely win races but Mel Rowley just hasn’t got going as yet. Hard Dealt is another, as she looked progressive when last seen, but plenty of Henry Daly’s are just needing an outing, so she’s one that goes on the back burner for today.
Horse Racing Tips: Apples Moon (Exeter, 1.15)
Nicky Martin has had three runners since the start of October and all three have won, so you can’t get much better than that as far as stable form goes, and Apples Moon (1.15), who looked steadily progressive before her season ended rather abruptly in December last year, could be another.
A ready winner at both Warwick and Sedgefield (and her defeat in between by Smugglers Haven in between those two efforts has worked out well, too) she was beaten at odds-on at Catterick on her final start of last year but like so many of Nicky’s may well have been a sick horse by that point, Nicky turning the lot out in February and packing it in for the year. That looks to be paying dividends now, and Apples Moon surely has more to come this year.
Horse Racing Tips: Thistle Ask (Exeter, 2.25)
It almost pains me to go against my old friend JPR One, a horse I’ve loved since Day One, really, as he’s bound to be wound up for this as he tries to keep the crown he wrestled off Djelo last year. That form has been made to look all the better by the runner-up since, not least with his Charlie Hall win last week, and despite JPR One being 4lb higher this time around, he still looks reasonably handicapped.
I’d have to be against Kalif Du Berlais, mainly on the grounds that plenty I’ve seen from the Nicholls yard recently do look like they’ll come on for the run. Winner of the Grade 1 Maghull Novices Chase at Aintree last season, the handicapper has perhaps been a touch harsh in raising him 4lb for that, and at the prices, I can give him a swerve today, for all he’ll do well this year.
Thistle Ask (2.25) might be the one. He’s got match-fitness on his side, having dotted up again at Wetherby last week (looked a cut above his opponents in the paddock), will love the ground and is improving very quickly. The one negative is that he’s got to race from slightly out of the handicap here, but to me that’s balanced out by the fact he’s match-fit and in great form. At the prices, he’s worth chancing to continue his progression here.
Horse Racing Tips: Ugo Bingo (Exeter, 3.00)
Ugo Bingo (3.00) rather jumps off the page here. He looked a horse to follow when beating a big field at Wincanton easily last December, and although he couldn’t follow up that win with another in three subsequent starts, moving from Anthony Charton to Joe Tizzard in the meantime, he ran respectably and returned this year with a very narrow defeat over slightly further here, finding only Hillsin a head too good. The pair pulled a mile clear of anything else and the 2lb rise is totally justified. Under professional handling today, and with that run under his belt, all looks in place for a huge effort today.
By Dave Massey
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