Horse racing tips: James Boyle's best bets for Thursday

Horse racing tips today:

• 16:55 Southwell – For Pleasure – 1pt @ 8/1 with Bet365
• 18:00 Southwell – Runaround Sioux – 1pt @ 7/1 with William Hill

For today's horse racing tips, our analyst James Boyle looks at the flat racing meeting at Southwell with two selections online.

As always, you’ll find up-to-date odds at the bookmakers, but our tipster’s predictions are researched early in the day and those prices could soon be moved in by the betting public. 

Odds stated are correct at the time of publishing, but check out today's racecards for all the latest movements. 

16:55 Southwell – For Pleasure – 1pt @ 8/1

Tortured Soul takes up a large percentage of this market and should be hard to beat having won six of his seven starts for Tony Carroll. However, he’s 3lbs wrong at the weights under a penalty and steps up in grade. It could be worth trying to get him beat at these prices.

The one I like is For Pleasure, who returns to the flat for the first time in a long time but looked rejuvenated when hurdling after joining up with Olly Murphy over the winter. He won his first two starts for the yard, then bombed out at Catterick last time having been taken on in the lead.

I’d still hope that he’s on good terms with himself and if he’s able to be anywhere near the level he used to be at when racing on the flat as a three year old, he’s competitively handicapped off 68. The yard don’t have too many flat horses but they’re 10-60 with older horses on the All-Weather.

Hopefully that record can be enhanced and I think the lead could be up for grabs at a slow enough tempo, with only Lexington Hero appearing to be a threat for the front position. If For Pleasure gets to dictate and takes to this surface, he may be in with a better chance than the price suggests.

18:00 Southwell – Runaround Sioux – 1pt @ 7/1

Runaround Sioux made a brilliant start to life in handicaps when scoring comfortably at Chelmsford last month and did so having sat towards the back of the field. Those tactics are not easy to pull off at that track and how she ran through the final furlong was quite impressive.

A 4lb rise looks far from harsh and based on her running style, there could be more to come stepped up to 7f for the first time. We’ll have to hope that she takes to the Tapeta surface, which is an unknown, but she looks to be capable of better and is fairly priced at around the 7/1 mark.

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