Don’t lose faith in Protektorat refinding best form at 16-1

TIMING is everything when it comes to ante-post punting, so we might as well look at the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup just in case Galopin Des Champs doesn’t do the business at Leopardstown on Saturday.

I’m not saying for a minute that he won’t, but we saw what happened to the Champion Chase market after Energumene’s defeat at Cheltenham on Saturday and you can’t take anything for granted.

Galopin Des Champs has, in any case, a little more to prove at the weekend than odds as short as 4-11 before five-day declarations would suggest.

This will be only his second run outside novice company and first in a 3m chase, and you would imagine he has a tougher task against in-form rivals rather than the ones he beat on his return as Fakir D’Oudairies was clearly way below form given the proximity of the third.

Fakir D’Oudairies was still a little below form when a fortunate winner of a Grade 2 last time, and hopefully we will see something at Leopardstown serve it up to Galopin Des Champs.

The winner did, of course, absolutely pulverise them at Punchestown in the John Durkan and he certainly has the ‘wow’ factor about him, but even if he wins on Saturday that won’t quite tell us about his ability to see out the Gold Cup trip.

He is clearly a fast horse and Willie Mullins said as much at the end of last season when suggesting he could even drop to 2m.

Speed is no negative to a horse’s Gold Cup chances of course, as the likes of Best Mate, Kicking King, Kauto Star, Sizing John and A Plus Tard have proved this century, but he’s still got to prove it.

What worries me a little bit is his jumping as he has a tendency to get pretty high, which brings in the possibility of the sort of steep landing that brought him to the floor in the Turners last season, and also means extra energy is being expended, which can really add up over 22 fences and 3m2½f.

At this stage he still has to appeal as the likeliest winner, though, not least because you can pick holes in all of his rivals.

With L’Homme Presse on the sidelines, Noble Yeats is second favourite despite managing only third of five in the Cotswold Chase on Saturday and, while it would not be like Emmet Mullins to have a horse cherry ripe for a prep rather than the real target, he does seem to lack that yard of pace.

He hit a flat spot before winning the Many Clouds at Aintree and, while you’re always likely to get away with that in a small field, in a bigger field with plenty of horses around you it could well spell trouble.

Defending champion A Plus Tard is still the form horse on last season’s runaway 15-length win, but he comes here under a cloud having pulled up in the Betfair Chase and then missed the Savills after banging a joint.

He wouldn’t be the first horse to be finished as a top-class performer after a lung-bursting effort to win a Gold Cup and, while the evidence of one run is nowhere near enough to write him off, he’s hardly had the best preparation.

Stattler lost his unbeaten record when going down by a neck to Minella Indo in the Tramore race Mullins twice used as a prep for Al Boum Photo, but he did maintain his record of improving with every chase start and it was no mean effort given he was conceding the winner 8lb over a trip on the short side.

However, he has a top RPR of just 167 and an official rating of 163, and he’s a shorter price than a lot of horses who have considerably better form.

His National Hunt Chase

success tells you he has no problem with Cheltenham and he may well improve again this weekend, but he needs to, so I can’t get excited about odds of 8-1.

Conflated, who doesn’t go on Saturday, ran in the Ryanair last year and would have finished second if he hadn’t fallen two out, but he was rushed off his feet in the early stages and you’d hope he’ll come here this time.

However, with doubts surrounding Allaho’s participation in the Ryanair he could easily go for the race his owner sponsors, so he can’t be considered a bet for now.

The two real enigmas in the race are Bravemansgame and Ahoy Senor.

I thought Bravemansgame was a doubtful stayer at the top level on soft ground in the King George and laid him accordingly, but he was never stronger than at the finish and was pulling away from eventual 14-length runner-up Royale Pagaille all the way up the straight.

I’d be far less confident about him not staying the Gold Cup trip now, but the big question is what form he will be able to show in the spring as he has disappointed at the spring festivals for the last two seasons.

However, we may be a little unkind to him over that, as the only really bad race he has run was when a 30-length fourth of four to Ahoy Senor at Aintree last April.

The year he was beaten at Cheltenham and Aintree as a novice hurdler, his third to Bob Olinger and second to Ahoy Senor were respectively only 3lb and 4lb below his best previous RPR, so they were hardly disastrous for a horse destined to be a chaser.

He has the form to be a good deal shorter than Noble Yeats, for example, and he has been deliberately kept fresh in the hope that will do the trick.

I’m beginning to warm to

him, but am far from sure he’ll be a public horse on the day given his profile as everyone will talk about him not performing in the spring, so I can leave him alone.

Ahoy Senor was considered one of the major contenders for the Gold Cup at the end of last season after his win at Aintree, but he seemed to have lost the plot at the start of this season and was a 50-1 chance before bouncing back with his Cotswold Chase success.

He still has his own way of getting over the fences, but he stays strongly and shows his best form in the spring.

However, if you’re of a forgiving nature the 16-1 about Protektorat is the each-way price that stands out for me.

He was challenging for second favouritism before the Cotswold Chase, and rightly so having finished third in last season’s Gold Cup and then run away with the Betfair Chase on his return.

So what happened on Saturday? It’s hard to tell, but I’m betting he wasn’t quite as fit as Dan Skelton thought he was, and he certainly ran like a horse who blew up when it mattered.

Protektorat travelled as well as anything throughout the race and was a bit keen if anything, and he was trading at around 4-6 four out, but he lost the race between three out and the last when getting outpaced.

It was surprising to see that happen, but he got his second wind after the last and in the final 100 yards was finishing considerably faster than the rest.

We are so used to horses running up sequences that the market can often overreact to defeats and this looks a case in point to me.

I was getting tempted to back Protektorat at 10-1 before the Cotswold, so am certainly not going to miss out on the 16-1, as on his best form that’s far too big.

His Betfair Chase win, which came on ground quicker than the official description of soft, suggests he has improved again this season, which is perfectly plausible considering he doesn’t turn eight until the end of March, and a slightly below-par effort in his prep does not mean the game is up.

It’s worth recalling that A Plus Tard was beaten at oddson on his pre-Cheltenham run last season, while the year before Minella Indo was only fourth of five at odds of 13-8 before turning the form around on the day that mattered.

Given the odds available, I’m happy to bet that Protektorat can at least go close to doing something similar.

After all, he is the fourth-best horse in the race of the likely runners on official ratings and second-best on all the runners’ best 2022-23 form, yet is joint ninth in the betting.