GARY Patchett knows all about gambles after a visit to last week's Cheltenham Festival - but the Robins chief is confident the management's punt on a team of youngsters can pay out in 2008.

The Swindon co-owner was a Festival winner after backing locally-trained Katchit last Tuesday, ahead of a trip to Prestbury Park for the Gold Cup three days later.

Some observers believe he and management partner Terry Russell have also pushed their luck with their team make-up this year - but the man himself likes what he sees.

Patchett said: "We like the look of this team very much and there's an awful lot of potential in it.

"These lads are young, ambitious, hungry and have got a lot to prove to themselves and a lot of other people.

"At the back end of last year when we came to put the team together, we said we were going to look for a team of up-and-coming riders.

"We started that ball rolling with James Wright and pretty much we've gone from there.

"What you've got to look for then is improving riders.

"The team that we've got is a bit of a gamble, but everything is a bit of a gamble.

"There's not one rider that we haven't got the utmost faith in.'' Swindon have not featured heavily in the pre-season Elite League betting, but Patchett sees little reason for pessimism.

"We'll take that onwards and upwards into this year.

"We're looking for progression year on year and, I don't want to sound stupidly optimistic, but there's only one way to go to improve on last year.

"We're at the beginning of the season and have every bit of a chance as everybody else.

"I'm looking forward to it very much but for very different reasons.

"Back last year we thought we had everything going for us. It was probably ours to lose and that's what we did.

"It's both a travesty and a tragedy that we had to pull last year's team apart to the extent that we did.

"But that's all water under a lot of bridges now.

"We're very pleased with what we've got in the circumstances that we were given, in terms of how we could build and what we could build.

"Rather than just looking at what next year brings, we can look at the following year and the year after that.'' Robins remain at full strength for tonight's visit of Eastbourne in the second leg of their Craven Shield tie.

They trail by 11 points after a 52-41 defeat on the south coast on Monday, but team boss Alun Rossiter was delighted by his side's fightback after trailing by 18 points midway through the meeting.