Where to start? Where do you start when you have 27 of the best and most intriguing races laid out in front of you, just about every one of which would be the feature race on any other week of the year, any normal week, shoe-horned into four magical days? At the start, I suppose. With the features.
Day one, feature race, Hurricane Fly is the correct favourite for the Champion Hurdle, especially now that the rains have arrived, but he may just be a little shorter in the market than he should be. Not that he can’t win it, nor that you wouldn’t love him to win it or cheer him home, a nine-year-old, back regaining his crown after losing it last year, righting the wrong that last year was, another Irish winner, the ninth since Istabraq’s first.
But the easy ground should suit Zarkandar as well. He is a horse who only just does enough, so he is never really going to look impressive in victory. Before his victory in the Kingwell Hurdle at Wincanton last time, he had won seven times, and never by more than two and a quarter lengths.
He was receiving 4lb from both Grandouet and Rock On Ruby when he beat them in the International Hurdle last December, and Grandouet in particular had travelled really well into the race, but Zarkandar is rarely going to travel well, he just keeps finding. He only beat Grandouet by two lengths that day, but he probably had a fair bit more in hand than that.
He won the Betfair Hurdle last year off a mark of 151 (My Tent Or Yours won this year’s renewal off a mark of 149) after an interrupter preparation, and he was a running-on fifth in the Champion Hurdle, again after a far-from-ideal prep. He apparently coughed after the Betfair Hurdle.
Also, he was just a five-year-old last year, and we know that five-year-olds struggle in the Champion Hurdle (only one winner since See You Then in 1985). He is six this year, he is older and stronger, and he has had a seamless run into the race. He may not be the smoothest traveler, he may not have Hurricane Fly’s pace, but he is tough, he is gutsy, he has class, and he loves Cheltenham. He is available at around 5.0 at present, but it is probable that, given his style of racing, he will trade at a fair bit bigger in-running on Betdaq, so it might be an idea to put up a couple of ambitious offers if you are feeling brave.
Day two, Champion Chase, easy peasy, Sprinter Sacre, but sit back and watch him. Enjoy him. You don’t want to be ruining the race for yourself by having four bars to win one.
Hopefully sense will prevail at some stage and Mr and Mrs Potts will run Sizing Europe in the Ryanair Chase – a race he can win – and not here against Nicky Henderson’s monster, but I am looking forward to seeing Mail De Bievre dance along out in front over two miles. The easy ground will suit, and if he jumps as well on Cheltenham’s undulations as he did at Newbury last time, he might just last a little longer than most people think.
Day three’s feature race is the World Hurdle, and Reve De Sivola should probably be clear favourite. The recent rumours concerning doubts about his wellbeing are a worry of course (smoke, fire, etc,), but he hasn’t drifted markedly in the market, which is the litmus test of the veracity of these rumours.
He is not a fashionable horse, a disappointing chasing career saw to that, and he hails from a relatively unfashionable yard (i.e. not Nicholls, Henderson or Mullins), but he is a top class staying hurdler. A Grade 1 winner as a novice and second in a Neptune Hurdle, he won the Long Walk Hurdle this season as easily as he liked, and he beat Oscar Whisky in the Cleeve Hurdle on merit. It doesn’t make much sense that Oscar Whisky is a shorter price that Reve De Sivola in some lists.
He loves Cheltenham, and the World Hurdle is usually a real grueller in which stamina and guts win out much more than speed and pace. That will suit Nick Williams’ horse well. He majors on stamina and guts. He goes well on good ground (his Grade 1 win was on good ground) but easy ground would bring his undoubted stamina into play.
Final day, and the betting for the Gold Cup looks about right (it has had long enough to morph into its correct form) and it is difficult to find an angle. It isn’t surprising that the top three in the market are the three second-season chasers, given that circumstances (no Kauto, no Denman, no Synchronised) are right for a changing of the guard.
It is correct that Bobs Worth is favourite. He is four for four at Cheltenham, two for two at the Festival, he won the Hennessy off a mark of 160 and the two horses who chased him home at Newbury fought out the finish of the Lexus a month later. That is rock solid form. He hasn’t run since then, but Barry Gergaghty reports him in fine fettle.
If there is an angle in the race, it is Sir Des Champs. He isn’t a mad price, he never has been, not since they cut him from initial quotes of 16/1 after he won last year’s Jewson Chase to 12/1 before you could say I’ll have 16 monkeys please Bob. But 5.2 or 5.3 is fair in a race that really lacks depth when you meander outside the top three.
With Sir Des Champs, you are relying on promise. He has just been progressing nicely all season, from the Durkan Chase to the Lexus, from the Lexus to the Hennessy, all the while getting better, and you just expect that Willie Mullins will have him primed to explode on Gold Cup day.
He will probably need to if he is going to beat a right-as-rain Bobs Worth, but the Gigginstown horse is also two for two at the Festival, and he should improve for the step up to three miles and two and a half furlongs, and for the better ground that he will probably encounter on Gold Cup day.
Can you wait?
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