My apologies for the late posting of this piece, the sudden shift in the weather and the change of the season has meant that I am taking some time to switch over to "winter" mode. As we move closer to the autumn season at Auteuil, there is another set of decent jumps races on offer this morning to help set the tone, this time at Toulouse. At first glance, there didn't appear to be a great deal of quality on offer, but having spent a bit of time looking through the card, there are a couple of horses who make some appeal from a betting perspective.
If you follow French jumps racing, you cannot help but notice the outstanding form that Arnaud Chaille-Chaille has been in recently. With an incredible 12 winners and 16 places from 34-runners (since 18th August), the yard could not be in better form and so in an attempt to "strike whilst their iron is hot", I have taken a small punt on 2 of his runners at Toulouse this morning.
The first is Madame de Laballe in the opening handicap chase at 10:28. A winner of 3 races over obstacles, she finished 3rd in a Listed Chase at Lion D'Angers as recently as May and with Cathy Joubert taking off a very useful 4-kilos, she is exceptionally well handicapped at this level. She was a runaway winner over hurdles on her latest start at Pompadour in August, where she dominated from start to finish and in the same mood, she should be very hard to beat. Cathy Joubert is superb value for her claim and her 2024 stats of 50-11-30 back up that point perfectly. This looks to be an excellent opportunity for a horse who was winning off a higher mark in a Class 2 event at Craon 12-months ago.
My other selection also comes from Arnaud Chaille-Chaille, this time in the 4-year-old hurdle at 11:38. This will be a second run over hurdles for Kreedence, who is a daughter of Great Pretender that has shown a fair level of ability in AQPS Flat races this summer. A winner at Molieres in July under Cathy Joubert, she was last seen finishing 6th in a €25,000 race at Clairefontaine in August. Although she was eventually beaten by 6-lengths, she was still in with a chance at the 2-furlong pole and both the winner and the runner-up will contest the G1 Prix de Craon at Paris Longchamp later this afternoon. She looks to have matured a lot over the summer and ought to make a better fist of things today than she did on her hurdles debut at Angouleme back in April. If she can translate her AQPS Flat form over hurdles, she ought to be competitive in this field and an opening price of 8/1 looked to be some fair value.
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