I was all set to back Grand Vision at about 14/1 or 16/1 for the Heroes Handicap Hurdle at Sandown tomorrow. I like these unexposed horses who come to race at big tracks having shown good form at smaller tracks. They are often under-rated.
Add in the fact that he is trained by Colin Tizzard, a trainer whose horses are rarely over-bet, and the fact that he was set to be 7lb wrong, that he was going to be carrying 7lb more than the handicapper determined that he should carry, simply because top weight Ashkazar, a little selfishly, stayed in the race, and the big prices were looking attractive. Alas, Jack Frost has intervened, wended his wicked way up under the Sandown frost covers and single-pawedly succeeded in having the meeting abandoned. He must have backed American Trilogy (non-runner) ante post. Hopefully we’ll get Grand Vision again, hopefully he remains under the radar.
It might be quiet enough this weekend. Wetherby has already gone down the same lonely road as Sandown, Fairyhouse is looking dodgy – minus five in Meath this evening apparently, around the same temperature as the reception that Joe Sheridan got in Louth in the summer of 2010 – and even Ffos Las, scene of Oscar Whisky’s intended Welsh Champion Hurdle victory lap, is not certain.
Tomorrow could be one of those rare Saturdays for lighting the fire in the sitting room, getting the popcorn in and watching the afternoon movie with the kids. (They still have Saturday afternoon movies, right?) At least Punchestown is looking good for Sunday, which is great. It would be a shame if Punchestown on Sunday was lost to the elements, what with the Big Zeb/Sizing Europe re-match set to go ahead and all. (2-2 at present.)
With all the uncertainty about this weekend, it might also be worthwhile taking the time to have a serious think about Cheltenham. The time will be coming around quite soon when people will start to ask you what your nap for Cheltenham is (20 minutes between the Neptune Hurdle and the RSA Chase), so you had better have a think about what it is going to be. And you’d better start thinking up something a little more original that Hurricane Fly or Big Buck’s or Quevega or Willie Mullins to be top trainer.
This is a serious issue, one with serious consequences and one about which you need to have a serious think. You probably need to give the same answer to everyone who asks, and the chances are you are going to be asked by a fair few people, so your reputation as someone who might know a little bit about horse racing, someone who is in demand by your peripherally-interested friends twice a year (the one-eyed man is king in the land of the blind) is on the line. Not only that, but you are probably going to end up having more money on the horse whom you have nominated as your nap than you should have, so it is going to have a financial impact as well as a reputational one.
I have decided on mine, at available odds. (It’s all about the odds.) Noble Prince. He has a huge amount in his favour and he is a fair bit over-priced for the Ryanair Chase now at 6/1. He was a 4/1 shot before he got beaten by Blazing Tempo in the Normans Grove Chase at Fairyhouse last month. He went down by three parts of a length there to a mare we know is highly talented in a race run over two miles on soft ground, over a distance too short and on ground too soft for Noble Prince, yet he stayed on at the mare all the way to the line.
I thought that some bookmakers would leave his Ryanair odds alone, I thought that one or two might extend his odds by a half a point, maybe a point. So I was pleasantly surprised when they pushed him out to as big as 15/2, generally 7/1. Common sense has taken hold a little, he is now no better than 6/1, but that is still big.
The case for? He is a two-and-a-half-miler through and through. He didn’t quite stay three miles over hurdles, and he just lacks that killer turn of foot that the top class two-milers like Big Zeb and Sizing Europe possess. His National Hunt record over two and a half miles reads 121121F, and the F would probably have been a 1 had he not come to grief at the second last fence in the Powers Gold Cup last year when he was travelling like by far the most likely winner.
Even at that, he still managed to get to within two lengths of Big Zeb in the Fortria Chase in November on unsuitably soft ground, and he got to within a length of him in the Dial-A-Bet Chase over Christmas on better ground, both times over two miles.
He is proven at Cheltenham and under Cheltenham Festival conditions. He put up what was probably a career-best over more of less the Ryanair course and distance last year when he beat an in-form Wishfull Thinking to land the Jewson Chase, clocking a time as a novice that was slightly faster, comparatively, than the time that Albertas Run clocked in winning the Ryanair itself 70 minutes later. He is at his best in the spring, he loves fast ground, he stays the trip well, he has gears at the intermediate distance, and he can quicken off the fast pace that they invariably go at the Cheltenham Festival.
He will have a nice break now after the Normans Grove, he has had a small wind operation, and Paul Nolan is well able to bring them to the boil for the big day. There are dangers, like Somersby and Great Endeavour and Rubi Light and Albertas Run, but there are question marks about most of those (track, class, ground and wellbeing/target respectively). Noble Prince, by contrast, has no such questions to answer, and he is on track for the race, mis-haps notwithstanding. This is his race, he won’t have any other entries at Cheltenham, and he should probably be a fair bit shorter than 6/1 for the race.
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