Key Points
- Let’s add some fun to Saturday with a Lucky 15 bet!
- Watch all four of these horses in action during the ITV Racing coverage
- My four best picks for this week all come from Kempton
Another Saturday has rolled round, which means it’s time for a Lucky 15 with selections from the ITV Racing coverage. My regular single selections are for producing a long term profit and they have done exactly that since I joined Betting.co.uk in March 2025. However, my weekly Lucky 15s are intended to be fun and easy to enjoy for the more casual weekend punters!
If you’ve just come across my content for the first time, I’m RacingGav and I’m the resident horse racing expert at Betting.co.uk. Part of my role here means I produce several articles per week, which are generally
free horse racing tips. They might be daily betting tips, antepost picks, or one like this where I put together a Lucky 15 for you. Beyond those, you’ll find other types of content like educational guides and big race trends.
As a general rule, I produce educational pieces every week, but with the Cheltenham Festival just around the corner now, these have been pushed to the side for now. Of course, there is the back catalogue of articles that I have already produced, if you want some educational content to read. This back catalogue covers topics like
Market Movers
and
the impact of track bias. These guides can help progress you as a punter and that knowledge is sure to come in handy across the big Spring festivals.
Betting advice - A win only Lucky 15
- 13:10 Kempton - Hold The Serve @ 9/4
- 13:45 Kempton - Precious Man @ 5/6
- 14:25 Kempton - Jax Junior @ 4/5
- 15:35 Kempton - Hoe Joly Smoke @ 7/1
The best value odds can be found at bet365 this week!
At the time of writing this article on Friday evening, the
best horse racing odds
across the four selections come from bet365 at 84.64/1! To give some context, the rest of the market varies from 59.34/1 to 74.89/1. In addition to the best odds, bet365 also have a great welcome offer for new customers. If you bet £10, you’ll get £30 of free bets. It’s definitely worth signing up if you don’t already have an account.
I believe these four horses can come out on top at Kempton!
The ITV Racing coverage can often dictate how I build the Lucky 15. This weekend, our options are limited in terms of each way value and therefore, I’ve opted for a win only Lucky 15 this time around. I think these four selections all have an excellent chance of winning and hopefully they can do exactly that!
Hold The Serve @ 9/4 - Wind surgery has made him a completely different horse!
Hold The Serve was sold as a store for €62,000 in June 2023, before going on to win an Irish Point-To-Point at Borris House back in December 2024. We then didn’t see him for nearly a full year!
In November 2025, he went to The November Meeting at Cheltenham and he was thrown straight into a Class 2 Maiden Hurdle there. Despite looking a good race, he was very well supported into 13/8 favourite. That speaks volumes about how well he had been working and the expectations that the Olly Murphy yard had for the horse. However, he ran no race at all. He dropped to the rear before five out and he ended up beaten 44 lengths back in 11th.
Two days later he was recorded as having wind surgery, so they clearly thought the issue lay there. Nearly a month later, he returned at Wincanton for a Novice Hurdle and had a step up in trip to help him too. He won very nicely that day, beating another good looking field. A month on, he was sent to Market Rasen in a further Novice Hurdle under a penalty and won easily.
He has been given an opening handicap mark of 123 and I think that actually looks quite lenient judging him on his Wincanton win. Between that opening mark and this winnable looking race, I think he can land the hat-trick here. I think Fasol is soft, Grenadier Jed is up 2lb for being beaten last time and the rest all look opposable for one reason or another here. Hopefully Hold The Serve can deliver an ace here to get us off the mark.
Precious Man @ 5/6 - Johnny de la Hay can land a hat trick with Precious Man!
Paul Nicholls knows the Adonis Hurdle very well. He is the leading trainer in the race with six previous victories - Hebridean (2009), Zarkandar (2011), Irish Saint (2013), Zubayr (2016), Solo (2020), Kalif Du Berlais (2024). As you can see from the previous winners, he sends some very smart horses to this race but this time around, he sends Falls Of Acharn who looks Fred Winter bound.
The horse that interests me instead is Precious Man. Now he is owned by Johnny de le Hay who has won this race before with Irish Saint and Solo and has been one of Paul Nicholl’s biggest supporters. However, after acquiring Precious Man following a second and a win in Auteuil, France, he has decided to send Precious Man to Dan Skelton instead.
Precious Man was sent to the Triumph Hurdle Trial at The November Meeting and he was 9/4 favourite to win that. However, he raced keen and he made a bad blunder at the last, losing both front shoes in the process. He was unable to recover from that mistake and One Horse Town kept on to make all. Following wind surgery and a 58-day break, Precious Man bounced back with an impressive victory over this C&D last month.
In my opinion, that C&D form is the strongest on offer in this field and whilst he does have to shoulder a penalty for it, I think there is plenty more improvement to come. He is set to bypass Cheltenham but it would be great to see him set his stall out for Aintree here and he looks like he could progress into a type that could give that Grade 1 a really good go!
Jax Junior @ 4/5 - A rejuvenated Jax Junior can deny Paul Nicholls another victory
Like the Adonis Juvenile Hurdle, the Pendil Novices’ Chase is another race that Paul Nicholls has farmed. This list is even longer though as he has won the race a remarkable 14 times - Napolitain (2006), Natal (2007), Oslot (2008), Herecomesthetruth (2009), The Nightingale (2010), Cristal Bonus (2012), Grandioso (2013), Irish Saint (2015), Frodon (2017), Cyrname (2018), Tamaroc Du Mathan (2021), Pic D'Orhy (2022), Solo (2023), Rubaud (2025).
For this year’s renewal, Paul Nicholls sends Go West in the hope of making it 15 wins in the race. However, despite Nicholls’ record in the race, he doesn’t have the market favourite here. This time it’s not Dan Skelton that the market expects to beat him, it’s Lucy Wadham and her 7-year-old gelding - Jax Junior.
Jax Junior was on a steep upward curve over fences with a second at Uttoxeter followed up by a win at this track (Kempton). However, it all went wrong at Ascot on his third chasing start where he bled and he was subsequently beaten 19.5 lengths. However, they gave him wind surgery five days later and he bounced back with a bang at Sandown with an impressive win, which was a career best.
That Sandown form is by far the best form on offer in my eyes and with the field racing off level weights of 11st 2lb with the exception of Jasmine Bliss who carries just 2lb less, I think Jax Junior will be a very tough nut to crack here. I think if Paul Nicholls trained Jax Junior, he’d be more like 1/2 or even shorter but as Lucy Wadham trains him, we’re able to get 4/5. I think 4/5 is more than fair in this four runner field and he should do the business for us here.
Hoe Joe Smoke @ 7/1 - Dan Skelton appears to have targeted this £150,000 Handicap
Dan Skelton is absolutely flying in the 2025/26 National Hunt Trainers Championship! At the time of writing, he has recorded over £3.25m in prize money which is over double his next nearest rival - Paul Nicholls. It’s safe to say that being pipped to the title by Willie Mullins in the last couple of seasons, has really lit a fire inside Dan Skelton and pushed him to new levels. Willie is yet to reach £300,000 and sits 33rd in the race at this stage, so he has a mountain to climb but you can never write him off!
A huge key to Dan’s success this season has been his excellent placement of his horses to win many of the most valuable handicaps. Therefore, I’m sure this £150,000 race has been on his radar for a long time. He runs two here and with Boombawn looking high enough in the handicap and with 12st to carry, Hoe Joe Smoke looks to be the main dart for Dan Skelton.
He has been running strong races in defeat so far this season and interestingly all three have come left-handed around Cheltenham. However, his two chase wins to date have come right handed around Sandown, so it will be fascinating to see him now switched to right-handed Kempton. He now sits just 4lb above his last winning mark, he has a lovely racing weight of 10st 8lb and first time cheekpieces go on. I think he has been targeted for this race and when Skelton does that, he often delivers. At 7/1, he’s well worth sticking in our Lucky 15 as the final leg to add some spice!
Can these four runners deliver for us?
With the exception of Hoe Joly Smoke, the prices are not very exciting unfortunately. However, the 9/4 for Hold The Serve isn’t too short and the 7/1 for Hoe Joly Smoke spices the bet up for us.
I think Hold The Serve has been given a lenient opening mark for handicaps and if I’m right, he could get us off to a flyer. I’d then be shocked and disappointed if Precious Man and Jax Junior didn’t produce wins for us in the middle races. If we can find winners in those first three races, it then acts as lovely leverage onto Hoe Joly Smoke at 7/1 in the £150,000 feature where I believe he’s been laid out for it.
At the prices quoted, even just the odds on runners winning would see near enough half of our stake returned. With Hold The Serve making it three winners at 9/4, we would see over double our stake returned. Of course, the dream is the full house, which would pay over 20x our stake due to the tastier price on Hoe Joly Smoke! If he could win, any other horse winning with him would see us in profit on the Lucky 15.
Take your pick from these bookie bonuses!
Below you will find a list of our recommended bookmaker partners and the
betting offers for horse racing
they are currently offering. As you will see, they can bring added value to your betting, and I strongly recommend you check them out!
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