With a big weekend of festive sport to come, we fancy another multi-sport accumulator on Saturday.
Action this week includes boxing, cricket, football, rugby, horse racing and more. We’ve chosen to go for four bets spread right throughout the day in our accumulator, beginning with the televised racing at Ascot.
Bet 1 – Strong Leader to Win the Long Walk Hurdle
The Long Walk Hurdle is due off at 2.25 on Ascot’s card this Saturday. As a Grade One race, this is a huge event in its own right and comes with a prize fund of £125,000. There are of course other factors at play here, such as the winner no doubt being well fancied for March’s Stayers’ Hurdle at Cheltenham.
This should be a quality race and, hopefully, a deep one too. With a different campaign being engineered for double Cheltenham handicap winner Langer Dan this season, a few will be on him at around the 20/1 mark ante-post.
We also strongly considered other runners such as last-time-out winner Shoot First, Fergal O’Brien’s Crambo and ante-post second-favourite The Wallpark. There were a couple of others that stood out more though.
Despite winning easily against other mares, Kateira (Dan Skelton) should not be discounted and could make good use of her sex allowance. Henry De Bromhead’s Hiddenvalley Lake was another who looked good.
The selection however is Olly Murphy’s Strong Leader who looks the sensible solution. Fit after a win 22 days ago in the Long Distance Hurdle, he stays well, handles most ground, is the best of this bunch and is even still improving so should prove hard to beat.
Bet 2 – Sheffield United to Beat Cardiff City
We’re often loathe to back away teams in any football division, such is the scarcity with which they win. At least, that’s what the stats tell us but in truth some football teams are simply much better than their opposition. We think that’s the case with Sheffield United as they head to South Wales.
Despite their points deduction the Blades look increasingly likely to fight it out with Yorkshire rivals Leeds for the Championship title this term. They look a class apart from most of their second-tier opposition.
Cardiff by contrast sit 21st in the league just now with only four wins from 20 games, though all four of those victories have indeed come at home.
Those wins have been narrow and not against the sort of opposition they’ll face at 3pm on Saturday. On the other hand, Sheffield United have been rock-solid home and away and in truth had a relatively easy assignment before this, a regulation 2-0 home win against Plymouth Argyle.
Cardiff had to battle hard for their 2-2 draw at Stoke last week but will find this game much tougher, even on their own patch. Sheffield United being available at odds-against looks wrong and should be taken.
Bet 3 – Newcastle Falcons at +12 Points Against Bath
Newcastle Falcons face Bath at Kingston Park at 5.30 on Saturday, going in of course as fairly heavy underdogs. Bath are as short as around 2/9 to win the game and we can’t argue with that, but it’s all about whether we think they will surpass that 12-point handicap mark.
Newcastle have lost their last two games after a decent run. Losing 32-19 at Pau and 14-22 at home to Dragons however doesn’t look disastrous. That’s especially the case when we see Bath too have lost twice in a row, 20-24 at home to La Rochelle and 22-21 at Benetton.
There’s enough in that to think Newcastle can push this relatively close. We can foresee a big effort from the Falcons here, potentially ending in a predictable defeat, but beating the handicap looks well within grasp.
The home side are around 10/11 at +12 points at the time of writing, something we think looks fair.
Bet 4 – Usyk to Beat Tyson Fury
The first fight between these two was back in May and for some, it was controversial. Then, judges awarded Usyk a split-decision victory which made him the first undisputed heavyweight champion since 1999 when Lennox Lewis beat Evander Holyfield.
There are many who believe the fight should have been stopped in Usyk’s favour in round 9. Now, from a betting point of view, we have to decide whether he will be ruthless and put that right, or whether Fury will have learned enough from that bout to turn things around.
Certainly, Fury is as confident as always. The money has also been coming in for him this week, but on the other hand that may simply push Usyk closer to that even-money mark which would look terrific value.
Surely, Usyk is the better fighter? It’s hard to see a major circumstance having taken place in the past seven months to change that as the pair meet again in Riyadh.
We can’t really take a chance on a points decision bet or a stoppage of any kind, but at the odds listed Usyk is relatively good value to simply win the fight by any means. Usyk to beat Fury will hopefully round off our four-timer nicely on Saturday night.
The Bet
Back this four-fold accumulator on the nose:
- Strong Leader to win the Long Walk Hurdle (2.25 Ascot).
- Sheffield United to beat Cardiff City in the Championship.
- Newcastle Falcons at +12 points on the handicap versus Bath in the Gallagher Premiership.
- Oleksandr Usyk to beat Tyson Fury.
Depending on your bookmaker, the four-fold multi bet should amount to around 19/1 or better.