A very pleasing Saturday for this blog as my main ante-post selection, Harry Topper, absolutely adored conditions and the test of stamina thrown at him during the Denman chase at Newbury to beat Paul Nicholl's Al Ferof. Al Ferof did previously hold Cheltenham Gold Cup aspirations but after this performance, where he didn't show the stamina one would think would be required to win a Gold Cup, connections may now look down the Ryanair route. However I feel that given conditions it will take the grey a while to recover from this effort where Daryl Jacob was issuing reminders a long way from home and he could be one to swerve in this market, especially as he would probably be a fairly short price.
Moving back onto the winner, Kim Bailey's Harry Topper. Harry actually put in a decent round of jumping, almost certainly helped by the fact they omitted a couple of fences due to the wet conditions and the slower pace they would have been going at through the mud, giving him a lot more time at his fences. However you could not fail to be impressed by the stamina shown by Harry and the layers cut him into 25/1 for Gold Cup glory in March. I can't have him on my mind for an outright win in that market, to me Bob's Worth looks bombproof, and you would need the ground to come up very soft for Harry Topper to even run in the race. Given the current weather situation that isn't unfathomable though and one could certainly imagine Harry staying on up the hill when others have cried enough and at 25/1 you can afford to take a speculative punt if you, like me, have forgotten what a week without rain was like!
Elsewhere on the Newbury card Calipto didn't do his Triumph Hurdle claims any harm when winning the opener under Daryl Jacob and is a 10/1 shot for festival glory on the Friday. The word out the Nicholls yard is that Calipto is the best four year old Nicholls has and ground conditions won't be an issue for this horse. However anyone wanting to play in that market may be best off waiting for results at Leopardstown tomorrow as this will see Ivan Grozny and Plinth face off, two horses right at the head of the betting, and an impressive performance from either of these will surely see them shorten right up, especially considering connections.
Module was a very game winner of the 2 mile 1 furlong chase on the card, beating Arkle hopeful Dodging Bullets by a narrow margin and both horses came out of this race with their reputations enhanced. Module looks like being aimed at the Champion Chase, for which he is a 33/1 chance, and that is a price that looks tempting considering his performance today and the trainer's words post race. We saw the majestic Sprinter Sacre parade before racing and his presence in the market makes it very tricky to get involved in ante-post. If a fit and 100% Sprinter turns up in March then everything else is playing for second place. However if Henderson's charge doesn't make it to the festival or goes there not 100% there are some huge prices floating about as the absence of Sprinter Sacre would see everything else cut in dramatically. It really depends if you want to gamble on the health of the reigning champion chaser however the vibes from his trainer today seemed positive enough and we can only hope we get to see Sprinter fit and healthy come March.
Smad place enhanced his RSA chase claims, and the Alan King stable seem to have emerged flying from the self-enforced downtime at the stable. I am currently really taking note of any of Alan King's winners as I doubt the trainer will have been able to get a massive amount of work into his horses considering it wasn't too long ago he was massively worried about the health of the stable. I really think there is loads more improvement to come from Alan's horses and while Smad Place definitely hasn't been missed in the market he is definitely worth his place as ante-post favourite in my mind. I've forgotten what Ballycasey even looks like considering how long it has been since we saw him on the course and I'd much rather back Smad Place that him when you consider they are the same price.
As a related note one Alan King horse I really quite like is ex-flat recruit First Mohican, a winner at Doncaster on Thursday. Rated 108 on the flat for the late Sir Henry Cecil this was First Mohican's first run for the stable. Uneasy in the betting before and Choc Thornton dropped his reins on the run in but neither of these factors prevented this one from winning. 20/1 is still available for the Supreme and the trainer has conformed this is his target, with a prep run at Kempton before. As mentioned early I expect all of Alan King's horses to improve for their first runs post-break as King gets the time to get more work into them and an impressive performance for this one in the Dovecote Novices Hurdle will see his odds slashed for the Supreme.
The minefield of the Betfair Hurdle was won by 33/1 shot Splash of Ginge, well done to anyone who managed to pick that one out! He holds entries in both the Supreme and Triumph hurdle at the festival, but the one I will be taking out of the race is Cheltenian, who was travelling well but seemed to tire on the extremely testing ground. David Pipe's horse also holds an entry for the Supreme, in which he is a 20/1 shot, and better ground come March will definitely see this Champion Bumper winner in a better light. In a fairly open Supreme market he is one who appeals at a decent price.
Finally Thomas Brown was very disappointing in the closing bumper. Harry Fry's charge had attracted money all day but was virtually pulled up in the end, it could have been that the testing ground just wasn't his bag of tea. And of course a Saturday's racing wouldn't be complete without a power-packed finish involving the champ AP McCoy, who was at his best to get Upswing home to win the 3 mile 1/2 a furlong handicap chase.
Thanks for reading!
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