What to make of Goshen? Or Song For Someone for that matter?

This is a horse I get wrong every time. He was brilliant on heavy ground on the flat - especially in October 2019 at Nottingham. Watch it here. I remember Hector Crouch saying how sorry he was that  Goshen would be going hurdling afterwards (maybe, with hindsight, he was right). 

Then of course Goshen won 3 hurdle races really easily. I was there at Footwell when he was miles clear and Jamie Moore let him run down the last hurdle to make sure there was no danger of him tipping up. I had laid him in each of these and then backed him for the Triumph. Again he was miles clear but this time the jockey (understandably in a grade 1 race) did not let him run down the hurdle and the jockey was unseated. 

This term he has run disappointingly on the flat, and then even worse in a hurdle race at Cheltenham in December. He was 6/4 favourite but beaten by an impressive Song For Someone (6/1), and may (or may not - depends who you listen to) have had a defibrillating heart (something that I have suffered from occasionally - as did Denman) so I feel a kind of strange kinship!

Goshen is now 25/1, and Song For Someone 20/1, for the Champion Hurdle. Tomorrow they reoppose in the Kingwell Hurdle at Wincanton. Song For Someone is 6/5 and Goshen 11/4.

It is always tricky for second season juveniles against experienced older hurdlers but it seems to me that - heart conditions aside - Goshen rates a bet tomorrow on what will be very heavy going. Let him have his head, lead from the off and run them into the ground. If he does that he will be 10/1 for the Champion hurdle on Sunday - and remember Allmankind (who was being thrashed by Goshen in the Triumph) has taken all before him in novice chases this season.

For what it is worth I also think Song For Someone is underrated. If either of them bolt up tomorrow, then back that one for the Champion Hurdle. And if they finish close together, well clear of the rest, then back them both in the forecast.

Hope that makes sense!

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