Take the Hit!

King George trip could bring best out of 25-1 Hitman

EVERY year the ante-post markets for Cheltenham are dominated by horses who won or finished in the frame at the previous year’s festival, and while that makes sense it’s worth remembering things don’t always pan out that way.

The Champion Hurdle, for instance, was last won by the previous year’s Supreme Novices’ Hurdle winner in

1970.

I would be full of hope that Constitution Hill, the highestrated novice ever, will become the first to do so since Bula, but a lot of water has to flow under the bridge until then.

The current 7-4 could well look a massive price come March, but there are no guarantees in jump racing, and as I struggle to build up the enthusiasm for betting at such prices on the day, I’ll be happy enough to let him negotiate his path there without having to worry about him stepping on a stone for the next six months.

If I’m going to back anything ante-post at this stage I need some more meat on the bones and the Gold Cup looks a far more open heat.

Of course, should A Plus Tard get there in the same frame of mind as he was last March something will have to step up in a big way, but time may tell the 2022 renewal wasn’t the strongest heat, for all he won it by 15 lengths.

Runner-up Minella Indo had barely been within a stone of his previous Gold Cup-winning best the year before and none of the young guns stepped up.

A Plus Tard will be nine at next year’s festival, and while that is far from too old, 17 of the winners this century have been younger. He would also be attending his fifth festival next March, and it takes a special horse to keep going back there and showing topclass form year after year.

He could well be one.

Festival form figures of 1321 suggest as much, but there ought to be plenty of new kids on the block this term and I can leave him alone at his current odds.

The one everyone expects to serve it up to A Plus Tard is Galopin Des Champs, who is just favourite ahead of the reigning champion (it’s 10-1 bar the pair), but we still couldn’t be entirely sure what race he will be aimed at.

He did win an end-of-season Grade 1 over 3m as a novice over hurdles at Punchestown in 2021, but last season was kept solely to around 2m4-5f over fences and he is clearly not short of pace.

Indeed, he even shortened quite recently for the Champion Chase, although that is surely fanciful.

Willie Mullins will have his usual large pack to shuffle, and while you’d hope all roads would lead to the Gold Cup, betting them to do so at 7-2 is not for me.

The dominant staying novices last year were the British pair L’Homme Presse and Ahoy Senor, who finished 1-2 in the Brown Advisory at Cheltenham and 1-3 in reverse order at Aintree afterwards.

L’Homme Presse won well at Cheltenham, but his plans this season apparently do not include the Betfair Chase or King George, and that means heisgoingtodowelltomakea major ripple in the ante-post betting at least until the second half of the year.

Ahoy Senor will get a chance to shorten, particularly if he wins the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury, which is a race that looks sure to suit him down to the ground.

He won’t, however, answer questions about his suitability to Cheltenham, and all of his best form so far has come on flat tracks.

He may well have finished only third in the Brown Advisory had Farouk D’Alene not fallen two out, and it is the latter who makes some appeal at 33-1 at this stage.

When Al Boum Photo lay winded on the floor after falling two out in Presenting Percy’s RSA in 2018, few would have fancied him to go on to win one Gold Cup, let alone two, but he duly improved past his generation to do so.

Whether Farouk D’Alene can do so remains to be seen, but he was going to go an awful lot closer than Al Boum Photo to winning that novice Grade 1 last season as he was going as well as anything approaching the second-last with Davy Russell still yet to ask him for his full effort.

The Gordon Elliott-trained seven-year-old had been a slow but steady improver before that, but was making a big step up on Cheltenham debut, and he was clearly expected to do so in some quarters as he was well backed against the British contingent, having been sent off at 9-2 after being 18-1 overnight (the withdrawal of Bravemansgame certainly doesn’t account for the big difference and he was 15-2 on course before the favourite came out).

With just ten starts to his name since making his debut in December 2019, Farouk D’Alene has been brought along very steadily by Elliott, and this could be the season he announces himself on the big stage.

That’s the only Cheltenham race I’m getting involved in at this stage (I backed Jonbon for the Turners in the spring, but he’s short enough now), but I do want to have a little crack at the Paddy Power Gold Cup.

Stolen Silver is the one as I’ll be surprised if he is quite as big as 14-1 should he go there and, having compiled a tidy little body of work at the track last season, it looks the obvious target.

The seven-year-old grey has taken off since moving from Nigel Twiston-Davies to Sam Thomas, and he closed last season with fourth place in the Plate and then a runaway win at the April meeting.

Both those runs came on the New course, but he ran Editeur Du Gite (13lb higher now) to a neck on the Old course over 2m at last year’s meeting, and that was after stumbling at the last, so there are no worries about the different circuit.

He is a talented performer, particularly if the ground doesn’t get too soft, and his 7lb rise may not be enough to stop him from going in again.

Finally, I’m going to put up one from left field in the King George.

Hitman may not be good enough or even go there, but Paul Nicholls talked about stepping him up to 3m at the end of last season and that might prove to be the making of what is still a young horse.

He seems to have been around for ages, but when he ran second to Fakir D’Oudairies in the Melling at Aintree in

April (outpaced between last two but stayed on well) Hitman was still just over a week short of his sixth birthday.

He improved again last season despite not winning, and there are plenty of examples of Nicholls-trained chasers who start their careers very early in this sphere and keep going forwards.

Clan Des Obeaux was in his third season as a chaser when winning his first King George, and Frodon was in his fifth despite being only eight.

Both those two were second strings to other Nicholls runners at Kempton, and while the champion trainer seems to have a much better chance with Bravemansgame, Hitman could yet surprise a few this term.

The big stumbling block is, of course, Allaho, who finally proved himself at 3m at Punchestown, looks the perfect fit for the race and will be a deserved short-priced favourite if sent over.

He’s got to get there, though, and I’m not going to worry myself with second-guessing Willie Mullins’ plans at this stage.