The best C4 Racing bets from Newmarket, Newbury and Ripon

Channel 4 Racing stretches across three meetings this Saturday, with a couple of Group races plus a raft of handicaps, including one at Newmarket made up of grey horses only.

For punting purposes, we’ve swerved the 2.45 Pantile Stud Grey Horse handicap, containing runners from three to 11 years old, to bring you our three weekend fancies and remember it’s Money Back if 2nd or 3rd to the SP Favourite in Channel 4 races!*

Lively Longshot – 14:15 Newmarket – Lexington Sky

There are a few in this 7f event with scope for improvement, having won 6f races on good-to-firm ground likely to come up again in Suffolk, but while Richard Hannon’s two-year-old only has an all-weather victory over the same distance in her back catalogue, she stands a good chance on recent trends.

Carrying 8-11, Lexington Sky is on the same mark as 2014 victor Astrelle and within a pound of last year’s winner Bahaarah, also trained by Hannon, whose father Richard senior took this in his last season as a trainer in 2013 with 14/1 outsider Light Up My Life.

Nap – 15:05 Newbury – Kings Fete

It’s not hard to see why Sir Michael Stoute’s five-year-old is so well fancied to take this Group 3, despite the other four runners in the race coming in at 10/1 or shorter.

Seven of the past nine Geoffrey Freer Stakes winners have gone off no bigger than 4/1, with four of them 2/1 or shorter.

Kings Fete has kept fine company since debuting as a three-year-old, finishing down the field in the Ladbrokes St Leger just over two years ago after running well at Glorious Goodwood the previous August, where Stoute’s inmate landed a 1m4f Group 3 on good-to-firm ground.

With conditions likely to suit at Newbury, he looks worthy of odds-on status.

Next Best – 15:55 Ripon – Nuno Tristan

Remarkably, this Great St Wilfred Stakes handicap has been shared between jockeys Daniel Tudhope and Tony Hamilton for the past five years, with the former bagging three victories for trainer David O’Meara and the latter landing two for Richard Fahey.

Tudhope is without a ride this year, giving last year’s winning combination Hamilton and Fahey a shot at drawing level with this four-year-old.

Nuno Tristan has a fair chance too, off a low mark around where this has been taken for the past six years, despite winning at Redcar over a furlong further less than two months ago.

*Money Back 2^nd and 3^rd to the SP favourite in any Channel 4 races with 8+ runners. Money Back 2^nd if 5-7 runners. Click here for full Terms and Conditions.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.