Paisley Park Looks NAP Material on Day Three

The Stayers Hurdle is the feature race on day three and Paisley Park looks like being the horse who is about to take the division by storm. The seven year old has burst onto the scene by winning all four races this season, two handicaps and two graded races.

Something that we see in the Stayers Hurdling division that we don’t see too often in the others is that horses take each other on throughout the season. When looking for winners at the festival, you have to try and compare lateral form and work out who is better than who using different form lines. With this horse, things are not that hard to work out.

You only have to go back to January to see this horse storm up the Cheltenham hill winning over course and distance by 12 lengths and having many of todays key rivals in behind him. On that form line alone, I don’t think anything can touch him here, and that is why I fancy him so strongly. He ticks two important boxes, he has done it before against many others in this field, and he has shown he can do it over course and distance.

The one horse against him that he hasn’t beaten is Faugheen, the likely second favourite and one that would write a fantastic story if he could win. However, he is 11 year old now, and while it would be lovely to see him win again at the festival, I would also be disappointed if that happened, we should have younger horses in this field who can beat him.

That leaves us with Paisley Park, who only has the occasion and the big crowd to contend with for the first time, the rest he has done before. He looks rock solid to me, and is the bet of the day on the third day of the meeting.