You still have to start with the second-season chasers in the Hennessy Gold Cup, but you also have to think about it a little bit more these days. You only have an edge when you have figured something out that isn’t common knowledge. When the market and the handicapper seem to be coming around to your point of view, your edge has probably been eroded and you need to start looking for a different angle.
Six of the last 10 Hennessy winners were second-season chasers, and that is a strong statistic. It makes sense. The second-season staying chasers are the ones who generally have the most scope for progression, who have the greatest potential to be a step or two ahead of the handicapper. They are still improving as chasers, in theory, still learning their trade, they are generally still relatively young, still growing and strengthening. As a result, there is a real possibility that they are racing off a handicap rating that under-estimates their ability or their potential.
However, while six of the last 10 Hennessy winners were second-season chasers, three of the last four weren’t. More important than a dubious stat with a sample size of four, though, is the fact that the handicapper and the market may be cottoning on to this phenomenon, at least with the high-profile second-season chasers.
Trabolgan went into the 2005 Hennessy with a very similar profile to the profile that Bobs Worth has now. Trabolgan was a seven-year-old, a second-season chaser from the Nicky Henderson yard who had been beaten in the previous year’s Feltham Chase, who had won the previous year’s RSA Chase, and who was making his seasonal debut in the Hennessy. Bobs Worth shares all of those characteristics.
Yet Trabolgan was allotted a handicap rating of 151 in the Hennessy, and he was allowed go off a 13/2 shot. Bobs Worth has been allotted a rating of 160 by the handicapper, and he is a 4/1 shot.
When State Of Play won the Hennessy in 2006, he won it off a mark of 145 and he was sent off at 10/1. Even when the mighty Denman won it in 2007 as a second-season chaser, he raced off a mark of 161 and was sent off the 5/1 second favourite. Bobs Worth races off a mark that is just 1lb lower than Denman’s mark in 2007, and he is a shorter price.
Not that Bobs Worth couldn’t do a Denman. It is possible that he could morph into a Gold Cup horse, no question. But a Denman doesn’t come along very often, and he has a fair way to go yet.
Bobs Worth could easily win today’s Hennessy, and his chance is much better now than it was earlier in the week when we were staring down the barrel of a heavy ground Hennessy (and he is no bigger a price now than he was then). It is probably correct that he is favourite, but he will have to be Gold Cup class if he is to win a Hennessy off a mark of 160, and 5.5 is short enough.
First Lieutenant is a high-class horse, he won the Neptune Hurdle as a novice hurdler and he came clear with Bobs Worth in the RSA Chase last March. He is a second-season chaser and the drying ground is also in his favour but, like Bobs Worth, the handicapper hasn’t taken many chances with him in allotting him a rating of 159, just 1lb lower than Bobs Worth’s rating. At their respective prices, he is a more attractive betting proposition than Bobs Worth, but odds of 11 are probably just about right.
It might be that you have to look down the list a fair way before you get to the over-priced horses. Hold On Julio and The Package and Frisco Depot and Tidal Bay all have chances, but they have been high-profile Hennessy contenders for a while, and there isn’t much in them at respective odds.
Three horses who look over-priced, by contrast, are Magnanimity, Soll and Saint Are. There is a chance that Magnanimity is a little under the radar. It looks like First Lieutenant, the mount of Bryan Cooper – with Davy Russell staying put in Fairyhouse – is the number one Gigginstown House horse, but there may not have been that much in it, given that First Lieutenant has to concede 16lb to his compatriot.
The drying ground is in First Lieutenant’s favour and not necessarily in Magnanimity’s, but the Dessie Hughes-trained horse was a high-class staying novice chaser two seasons ago. He was a little disappointing last season, admittedly, but so were a lot of Hughes’s horses, and he has shaped much better in two runs this season, in common with a lot of his stable companions.
He gets to race today off a mark of 143, 7lb lower than his peak, and the talented Mark Enright takes off another 5lb. There is a chance that he is a fair way ahead of the handicapper, he has headgear back on today for the first time this season, and an extended three and a quarter miles on easy ground is probably just the thing for him. Odds of 22 look big.
Soll also looks big at 46. As with Magnanimity, softer ground wouldn’t have been a handicap to him, and there is a chance that, with just four runs over fences under his belt, the white-hot heat of a Hennessy might just be a bit too much for him.
But that is a chance that you can take at a massive price. He was a really interesting horse for Willie Mullins last season, he was as short as 8/1 for the National Hunt Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, and the Hennessy has been on new trainer Jo Hughes’s radar for him since she got him a couple of months ago. He is 1lb out of the handicap, but time may show that he is a better horse than a rating of 139 suggests.
Saint Are is only six, but so were three of the last nine Hennessy winners. He appears to be at his best on a flat galloping track, he handles good ground and soft ground, and Tim Vaughan’s intention since the start of the season was to have him make his seasonal debut in the Hennessy. There was no point in winning a small race, he figured, and getting another 7lb or 8lb for the Hennessy.
Quite right too.
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