Nottingham 2.50 4 Zealous each way at 20/1 (B365) 16/1 generally

The 2.50 at Nottingham is a competitive Class 4 handicap over just over a mile;
sadly with 15 runners, odds to 3rd and not 4th place. As you would expect at this
time of year there are a number of tired horses and a number of unexposed types.
The Going is Good to Soft, likely to be plenty soft enough. I narrowed the field
down to a couple and just decided to leave off the Richard Fahey trained Carnageo;
as I think it is something of a Ripon specialist now. You can give chances to most
of them but the one that really caught my eye was ZEALOUS.
Trainer Alan Swinbank has suffered with a virus affecting his horses but they
have shown distinct signs of running better in the past few weeks and this horse
is very fresh and as a 3 year old could have significant progression to come. I am
sure that if it was not 100% that they would have "put it away for the season" so the
fact it runs has to be seen as a positive. It won a nice race at Doncaster (a similar
galloping track) off 79 in early summer, struggled since at Haydock and York but
was almost certainly not 100%, and off this mark, a repetition of the Doncaster
run would see it being very competitive in this field. The 20/1 with Bet 365 is
"stand out" but there is 16/1 generally and bits of 18/1 - so Best Odds Guarantee.
It is speculative, but what isn't at this juncture of the Flat/NH changeover.