It is at this time of year that you need to tread a little warily, or a little more warily than usual. The ground is changing.
It happens every year. Every January, as you watch horses the length and breadth of Ireland and Britain plough their respective ways through Somme-like conditions, you think that the good ground will never arrive. It is virtually impossible, from January’s depths, to imagine hooves bouncing off good ground and horses clocking times that are faster than standard. Yet every year, the spring arrives and the swallows come back.
Every year we are told that this time it will be different. This time the good ground really will not come. Every year they bet on the ground on the opening day of Cheltenham, and every January, Soft gets backed and bookmakers report some shrewd money for Heavy, Soft in places (40/1 to 16/1 generally).
This year, we were told that it really would be different. The talk was of water tables being higher than the days before Noah set sail (thank God he saved the Byerley Turk and the Godolphin Arabian), of the fact that it had been wet for 12 months. Remember the squelchie Punchestown Festival, they said. Remember Irish Derby day last year, when the ground was soft to shallow?
And this year, no different. The rains have relented, the daffodils have appeared, and Simon Claisse gave his annual February oration about the possibility of artificial irrigation.
So tread warily today. Almost all the form that you see in front of you is soft ground form. We know that the state of the ground is one of the most important variables in the determination of the result of a horse race, so there should be value today to be had in looking a little beyond the recent-form-obvious.
The ground yesterday at Doncaster was officially good, good to firm in places. Now there’s a descriptor that you didn’t think you would see until Royal Ascot. It was officially good to soft at Newbury, but race times suggest that it was much more good than soft. The only race – on a card that consisted of a bumper, four Class 4 races and two Class 3 races – in which the winning time was slower than 0.8secs/furlong slower than standard, was the bumper, and they stood still in the bumper after the tapes went up long enough for darkness to begin to close in.
There are angles. Take today’s feature race, the Greatwood Gold Cup at Newbury. Garynella has been the talked-about horse all week, and it is easy to see why. A David Pipe-trained nouveau French import, it is no wonder that the bookmakers are playing defensively after Ballynagour was backed from big prices down to 7/4 favourite for a handicap chase at Warawick last Saturday, and won with any amount in hand. 20lb, actually, according to the official handicapper, and he is still favourite for just about every Cheltenham handicap (even the County Hurdle, no kiddin’) even off his revised rating.
Garynella is not Ballynagour. Not yet anyway. Importantly, all Garynella’s good form in France was on soft ground. All five of his wins over hurdles and fences have been on ground that was officially described as either soft or very soft. His only run in Britain was in the two-mile handicap chase that Shooter’s Wood won at Cheltenham’s December meeting, and in which he ran well for a long way until the winner ran away from him from the home turn. But that was also on soft ground.
He may handle today’s ground, he may improve for it, but there is no real reason to think that he will. David Pipe’s comment in today’s Racing Post, that “this sounder surface may suit him better” is non-committal, and watching his action at Cheltenham, it wasn’t screaming good ground.
He may well win today, a mark of 130 may under-estimate his ability, but he was well-backed for his British debut in December, and he was well beaten there off a mark of 132, so it may be that a mark of 130 is no better than fair. He is short enough for all of that at around 4.5.
Taking on Pipe and Nicholls in the Greatwood Gold Cup may not be the most astute course of action ever taken, given that, between them, the Pipes (Martin and David) and Paul Nicholls have produced seven winners of the last seven renewals. Even when there was a dead-heat in the race in 2006, it was between the Nicholls-trained Cornish Sett and the (Martin) Pipe-trained Horus.
The Knoxs is more difficult to take on at a bigger price. It’s not a ground thing with him. On the contrary, The Knoxs should love the ground. It is a worry that Ruby Walsh goes to Doncaster to ride Join Together in the Grimthorpe Chase instead of going to Newbury. Ruby always rides in this race for Nicholls. Even in 2011, when it looked like Meanus Dandy had a better chance of winning the Grimthorpe Chase than Niche Market had of winning the Greatwood, Ruby stayed at Newbury.
Okay, so Join Together is a potential Grand National horse for Ruby, he is going to have to choose between him and Graham Wylie’s two horses at some point and it makes sense to that end that he rides him in a race. And he also rides Themilanhorse and Toubab and Aaim To Prosper at Doncaster. But it is still not a positive.
The Ruby factor aside, The Knoxs is a risky proposition. There is no questioning his ability, and he still has the potential to be better than his handicap mark despite the fact that he is 10 now. He is a lightly-raced 10-year-old. He probably would have beaten Bless The Wings over this course and distance last time had he not crashed out at the final fence, and a 2lb hike for that is no harsh.
His jumping is always going to be a worry. His record over fences reads FF1171F. He has fallen as often as he has won. That said, this has probably been his target for a while, he was probably avoiding the deep winter ground. If you are happy to take a chance on his jumping, then you should probably get him on side at around 6.4. He is a stakes-saver for me.
My main bet in the race is Pepite Rose. She looks over-priced at 8.0. Venetia Williams’ mare has been disappointing on her only two runs this term to date, but both of those were on unsuitably soft ground and, actually, the first of those wasn’t that bad at all, when she finished third in a decent handicap chase at Ascot, on ground that should have been softer than ideal and over a trip that should have been shorter than ideal.
It is probable that Venetia has put her away for the winter, off the deep winter ground, and trained her for a spring campaign. It is probable that the trainer has had this race in mind for a while.
Three big things in the mare’s favour: the ground will be ideal, she loves Newbury, and she seems to come alive at this time of year. Her best run over hurdles was at Warwick in February 2011, and she won four chases on the spin last year between late February and late March. Significantly, two of those races were at Newbury, one of them the novices’ handicap chase on this card last year.
She does have a higher handicap mark to overcome this year, but she was rated 150 after the fourth of those four wins, and she has won off a mark of 135, so a mark of 144 should be more than manageable. She is a lovely mare, a really efficient jumper off good ground, and she is only six with just seven chases on her cv, so she still has plenty of scope for progression. Her trainer’s horses remain in top form, and she should run well.
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