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| Pipe Dynaste-y - The Pond House form can continue in the Betfair Chase |
This Saturday truly is another day worthy of the ‘super’ tag so often haphazardly thrown around these days and the feature race of the day looks set to be an absolute humdinger.
Many are dubbing it a mini Gold Cup and they wouldn’t be far wrong with a mostly high class field of ten currently standing firm.
Gold Cup winner Bobs Worth makes his seasonal reappearance, as does last year’s winner of this race Silviniaco Conti and last year’s leading novice chaser Dynaste also makes his first start of the campaign as we get to see just how good he actually is.
Throw in former Gold Cup winner Long Run, the highly-rated Cue Card and the enigmatic veteran Tidal Bay and you have the ingredients for (forgive me) a mouth-watering Lancashire hotpot.
The betting is generally a good guide to finding the winner of this race with those at the head of the market having tended to dominate in recent years, but before examining the merits of those prominent in the betting let’s eliminate a few contenders that won’t win.
Cloudy Too simply has no chance and it would also be a surprise if Prince De Beauchene even ran let alone got competitive in a race this hot should he take his chance.
Roi Du Mee’s price on the other hand is somewhat of an insult given the form he’s been in so far this season. The eight-year-old is never far from hitting the money and still seems to be improving, his rout of a good field in the Jnwine Champion Chase last time out showing that.
Although he has form over shorter distances I do think of him as more of a staying type though and that could go against him round Haydock. It wouldn’t surprise me to see him run well though and strictly from a value perspective he jumps off the page when you compare his price to that of some of his rivals who are much shorter.
It looks an ultra-competitive renewal though and he will have to improve again considerably to get on terms with some of the stars he will likely line up against.
The Giant Bolster is a horse I’ve never really developed much affection for and to me he still seems to dine out on that second in arguably one of the weakest Gold Cups in recent memory.
He failed to really get competitive last season finishing a well beaten third in this, pulling up in the King George, again being well beaten in the Denman and the Gold Cup and then running an absolute shocker in the Bowl at Aintree.
He has sorted out his jumping issues now, but for me he’s just not good enough to win one of these top class 3m chases, that’s not to say he’s not a good horse but there are just several better horses in this division. He’ll do well to place in this and I’d personally say on recent efforts that Roi Du Mee should be shorter than him.
Long Run could look to have been a monster price after the race if he were to run well having finished second in this to the great Kauto Star in 2011 and Silviniaco Conti last year. He’s a dual King George winner and a former Gold Cup winner and prior to his awful effort in the Charlie Hall had never been outside the first three.
It’s just too much of a risk to back him in this though, he’s been beaten fair and square in lesser renewals than this before, comes here on the back of a career worst effort (in spite of there being excuses apparently) and looks more and more like he wants an extreme trip.
If the ground comes up ridiculously testing then that coupled with the extra furlong the race has this year he could hit the frame and at his current price that would be worth a fair return but you’d have to be brave to think he could do that with any degree of confidence following Wetherby.
Tidal Bay is a cracking old warrior that showed he still retains that mercurial ability when getting up late to beat Medinas in the Bet365 Hurdle on Charlie Hall day.
That was his first start since his pulsating late burst to land the Lexus last Christmas and he had previously defied a welter-burden to chase home Bobs Worth in the Hennessy last season.
He was second in a shocking renewal of this to Imperial Commander in 2010 and if he arrives in peak form would not struggle to go close, but at his advanced years (will be 13 in January) he could find things difficult in a red hot renewal against some of the best around.
Cue Card is another that has never really done it for me and in spite of his multi-grade 1 winning CV I just feel he’s always been slightly overrated.
I certainly don’t subscribe to the view many others do that he wants a trip these days and think he will be seriously questioned over 3m1f.
If he does do it I’ll hold my hands up and let’s be honest it wouldn’t be the biggest shock given that he’s given Sprinter Sacre some semblance of a race on a couple of occasions, ran away with the Ryanair at the festival last year and almost beat Bobs Worth in a novice event a little under two years ago.
He was soundly beaten, albeit giving piles of weight away, in the Haldon Gold Cup on his reappearance however and for me if he has aspirations to mix it with the top stayers, as he will be doing here, he should have been winning that race.
That leaves three and this is where things become a little tricky. Let’s start by ruling out last year’s winner Silviniaco Conti, I’m not saying he won’t win as he rates as a very plausible winner in my eyes but he took a crushing fall, admittedly when cruising, in the Gold Cup and although he rallied late on for third did not look the same horse at Aintree.
He did of course win very well in this last year but a large part of that has to be credited to a master class from Ruby Walsh, and though Noel Fehily is a very able deputy he’s no Ruby Walsh. I appreciate that in Al Ferof and Zarkandar there are two plum rides for Daryl Jacob at Ascot but I just think that if they were truly confident in Silviniaco Conti here that first choice jockey Jacob would be on board.
I do like Silviniaco Conti and would not begrudge him back to back wins in the race at all and given his trainers record in the race you would be a fool to say he won’t double up, but I’m just not as confident in him this year as I was last year.
So that just leaves the king and the pretender to his throne, and it pains me to do this as I love Bobs Worth dearly but I’m siding with the new kid on the block.
On paper Dynaste should be no match for Bobs Worth, but for a long time this wasn’t even talked about as being on the Bobs Worth agenda this season, a combination of the extra furlong and a lack of viable alternatives (no Hennessy this year unless he wanted to carry a Denman-esque weight) however have meant this is his starting point.
The worry is why they didn’t see it as an option previously and I think it’s because Haydock is a speed-favouring track and Bobs Worth is the most dour stayer you could hope to find; he’s a magnificent little horse that will surely hit the money but at a short price, first time up in a ferociously competitive race and away from his beloved Cheltenham (though still going left-handed) there are enough reasons to think he may be vulnerable here.
I still think he’ll probably take the beating and would not be surprised nor sad to see him do so but in Dynaste he takes on a horse that could be a future great.
I’m a sucker for a Pipe grey and have been seduced by and fooled into thinking one was the second coming very recently, cough Grands Crus cough, and though I don’t quite know if Dynaste will have the tools to win a Gold Cup I think in the mould of Kauto Star he could be very good at the speed emphasis tracks such as Kempton and Haydock.
His only defeat over fences came when running in the wrong race at the festival but even then he managed to scramble home for second. Prior to that he had impressed in his novice events, no more so than when easily taking the Feltham on Boxing Day.
He finished the season running away with the same Aintree novice event that Silviniaco Conti took on his way to winning this last year and don’t forget he absolutely hacked up in the Fixed Brush hurdle on this card two years ago.
He threatened to give the mighty Big Buck’s a race over hurdles on a couple of occasions that season but has been even better since sent chasing and this race, if he’s right first time up, should suit him.
If the weather turns – it isn’t forecast to be too bad between now and Saturday over Haydock – and this in turn turns in to a stamina test he will more than likely struggle and Bobs Worth would confidently become the selection, but on decent enough ground Dynaste’s accurate jumping and speed could see him announce his arrival at the top table in the first big 3m(ish) chase of the season.
Betfair Chase 2013 – Best Odds:
Bobs Worth 9/4
Silviniaco Conti 5/2
Dynaste 7/1
Cue Card 8/1
Tidal Bay 9/1
Long Run 12/1
The Giant Bolster 16/1
Roi Du Mee 20/1
Prince De Beauchene 25/1
Cloudy Too 33/1
Recommendation:
0.5pt each-way Dynaste @ 7/1 (Coral)
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