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| Boston B Party - Boston Bob looks an ideal sort for the RSA |
This year’s race however is looking increasingly sparse on top talent, perhaps due to a rather poor crop of novice chasers. Last year’s novices have proved to have been a vintage bunch through their exploits this season, but with the exception of Dynaste we really haven’t seen anything else worth getting too excited about to date.
So with that said it comes as no surprise that the David Pipe-trained grey is a very short-priced ante-post favourite for the race often called the novice Gold Cup.
Dynaste is a worthy favourite but at 5/2 he looks anything but a good price given how far away from the race we still are and just how many short-priced favourites have been turned over in this race in recent years. There’s still a part of me too that suspects he may not even run, as the RSA has a habit of really ripping horses’ guts out.
Last year’s winner and runner-up Bobs Worth and First Lieutenant have proved that you can come out of the race and kick on as a second season chaser but the list of horses who’ve never quite been the same after the RSA makes for worrying reading.
Grands Crus, Weapons Amnesty, Time For Rupert, Bostons Angel, Jessies Dream, Cooldine and Punchestowns are just a few names from the last few renewals that looked to have the world at their feet before or just after the race only to never really look the same again.
I’m not trying to suggest there’s some sort of curse on the race as Denman proved that you can win it and go on to bigger and better things, as did Long Run who was third in 2010, but the race does look to leave a mark on horses due to being such a brutal slog and given what happened to Grands Crus at a short price last year I’d be very careful with a potential superstar if I was David Pipe.
Given the down and out grueling battle the RSA can be it often pays to side with a horse who can knuckle down and grind it out and though Dynaste looks far and away the best 3 mile chaser we’ve seen this season I’m not convinced he has that constitution and might end up out-fought up the hill if things got really attritional out there.
Paul Nicholls’s Rocky Creek was impressive at Warwick recently when accounting for Highland Lodge but the champion trainer has expressed his high hopes for this horse and also may not want to risk a future Hennessy horse in the RSA and there’s been talk of him bypassing the festival this year.
One horse that has always looked on target for the race, and looks to have the attributes you need to win an RSA, is Boston Bob. Second in the Albert Bartlett when well fancied last year he is more workman-like than flashy but is a strong, battle-hardened stayer.
He’s always been towards the top of the market for this race and although not visually impressive on his first start over fences this season he battled on well to win in the mud.
We should know more about his attitude over larger obstacles after his next run which should be imminent, and although he’s only one of two horses entered in all of the novice chases at the festival the RSA has always seemed his most realistic target.
Boston Bob didn’t completely appear to enjoy Cheltenham last year when beaten in the Albert Bartlett, but to my eye it was a rare Ruby Walsh error that cost him more as he was bearing down on poor Brindisi Breeze with every stride and if ridden more prominently throughout I think would have reeled him.
On hurdles form he is right up there with Dynaste and I can’t help but feel that after another run, if he can show a bit more dominance, his price will fall.
The RSA can be a knock down, drag out affair even on good ground and Boston Bob should go no matter how the ground comes up and be staying on when plenty of the others have cried enough.
The other Nicholls runner Unioniste has seen money over the last week and the five-year-old was an impressive winner of the December Gold Cup off a feather-weight.
He doesn’t immediately appear an RSA horse though and a brutal race such as this might not be the ideal next port of call for a lightly raced five-year-old, but if he were to line-up you’d have to respect his chance.
Boston Bob’s stable mate Back In Focus is another who looks a thorough stayer, but with his more-fancied stable mate engaged here it remains to be seen whether connections would opt to run them both.
His head victory over Aupcharlie had looked okay form until that horse’s odds-on defeat to Tofino Bay, and the fact that a horse that looks a blatant non-stayer such as Aupcharlie managed to get so close to him now has alarm bells ringing for me.
Aupcharlie will surely now tackle the Jewson rather than the RSA so can be ruled out, and his Naas conqueror from the weekend Tofino Bay just doesn’t look good enough to me and simply out-battled a non-stayer under an inspired Davy Russell.
Of the remainder, Our Father, Sire Collonges, Super Duty and Highland Lodge have all shown glimmers of form this season and if putting their best foot forward would have to be in with a chance of at least making the frame, but all have also thrown in the odd stinker of a run so can’t be backed or ruled out with any real degree of confidence following an odd winter of prep races.
Hadrian’s Approach’s Feltham second is arguably the strongest piece of novice form outside of the main protagonists but as good as Dynaste looks that looked a very ordinary renewal of that race and he was still 9l adrift of the favourite.
All things considered, and given Dynaste’s very prohibitive price, taking the Albert Bartlett as a solid trial for the following year’s festival has to point you in the direction of Boston Bob.
He may only have one admittedly unimpressive run over fences to his name but I expect him to come on for that and improve for the return to ground less akin to a quagmire.
If he were to win, and win well, next time out I suspect he’ll be a lot closer to Dynaste in the betting than he is at present and with small doubts surrounding the participation of most of the leading contenders at this stage he strikes as the least risky bet of a race crammed full of them at present.
RSA Chase 2013 – Selected Best Odds:
Dynaste 5/2
Boston Bob 7/1
Unioniste 12/1
Rocky Creek 14/1
Back In Focus 16/1
Hadrian’s Approach 20/1
Tofino Bay 20/1
Aupcharlie 25/1
Our Father 25/1
Sire Collonges 25/1
Super Duty 25/1
Baily Green 33/1
Broadbackbob 33/1
Highland Lodge 33/1
Recommendation:
Back Boston Bob to win @ 7/1 (Bet365, Ladbrokes)
Previously:
Festival Focus - Supreme Novices' Hurdle
Festival Focus - The Arkle
Festival Focus - Champion Hurdle
Festival Focus - Mares Hurdle
Festival Focus - The Neptune
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