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| Gold Cup Des-tiny - Houblon Des Obeaux looks hugely overpriced in the big one. |
We’ve been treated to some thrilling moments over the years in this great contest, including last year’s bizarre, but no less heart-pounding, finish.
This year’s running of the Gold Cup is one of the most open looking renewals of the race in living memory and thus there are some pretty tasty prices floating around.
Since mid-November the market has correctly revolved around Silviniaco Conti following his impressive victories in the Betfair Chase and the King George.
He is without question the best staying chaser in training and he looks a very worthy favourite on paper.
This is the Gold Cup though and as we’ve seen time and time again the ‘best’ horse does not necessarily always win, it’s a war of attrition with an unforgiving climb to glory at the end, and though his supporters will make excuses, Silviniaco Conti has twice been beaten in the race.
In fact he’s only been to Cheltenham three times and is yet to make it in to the winner’s enclosure, Paul Nicholls was so mindful of keeping him away from Prestbury Park in his early career that he didn’t even contest races at the festival during either his novice hurdle or novice chase campaigns.
There probably feels here like there’s a degree of picking holes in a superb race horse, and that’s because there is, and in truth there are holes that could be picked in literally every entry for this year’s Gold Cup for one reason or another, it’s just that it feels more pertinent to be doing so about a 3/1 favourite.
If they ran this race at Kempton then Silviniaco Conti would probably win and win handsomely, however here and in this race there are enough niggles in my mind to take him on at the price and that really does open up a world of value further down the market if you are also that way inclined.
Rather than reel off every other horse’s credentials and then tear them down, I’ll focus mainly on the horses I like and why I feel that way, suffice to say though that the only two other horses currently sitting at a single figure price – Road To Riches and Many Clouds – both are worthy of their market positions based on their exploits this season.
However both are also far from bulletproof and though they are the most logical alternatives to the clear market leader, neither offer much in terms of value for a race featuring so many horses very closely matched on the inconsistent form of this division over the last twelve months.
So many people have been making a case for Many Clouds for the Gold Cup since his Hennessy win and subsequent victory at the weekend that it seems strange to me that a horse that gave him 6lb but was only beaten just over 3 lengths in the Hennessy is some five times the price.
Like Many Clouds, Houblon Des Obeaux has also come out since Newbury and run extremely well, lumping another mammoth weight round Ascot to go down by only, an admittedly flattering, 2 ½ lengths to leading novice chaser The Young Master in spite of giving him over a stone.
Venetia Williams’ horse has been better than ever this season and is practically written off in this current market – the Hennessy form is being franked left, write and centre and though he probably is not a true Grade 1 horse, in a race as open as this does he really deserve to be five times the price of his Newbury conqueror?
One stick used to beat him with is that he needs a bog to be seen to best effect, which is simply not true. In fact most of his tries on heavy ground have led to pretty comprehensive defeats.
To my eye he seems no more ground dependent than Many Clouds and his latest Ascot performance was on the sort of good to soft ground it’s not hard to envisage there being for the Gold Cup if we had a wet March.
If connections do decide to bypass the race due to the going, then with the NRNB concession you lose nothing but let’s not forget he was a close up fourth in a good ground Pertemps at the festival three years ago.
You may worry that he was a very well beaten ninth in this race last year, but if you go back and watch that race you’ll see his chance all but evaporated thanks to the false start which led to him almost being left behind when they eventually did get going.
He was then caught wide for the entire trip and a mistake at the fourth last ended any remote hope he had of being involved at the finish.
With a better start and racing position this time around he can present himself in a much better light. Being reunited with Aidan Coleman – the man that has partnered him to every one of his wins to date – can only be a positive too and with Venetia Williams not really having anything else for the race this year that seems almost a certainty at this point should he line up.
Connections are sporting and I think he’ll run, I don’t think he’s anywhere near as ground dependent as is often made out, but if the ground was to come up testing he could look very interesting on the morning of the race given that he does handle a softer surface, which some of these don’t.
Given how the Hennessy form is working out, at 40/1 NRNB he is just too big.
Another perceived outsider I like is Paul Nicholls’ second string Sam Winner.
Always highly thought of he’d never really quite lived up to expectations until this season, during which he finally seems to be getting his act together in a big way.
Thoughts of his tame effort in the Pertemps two years ago, when he was sent off as one of many people’s bets of the week, were banished at the start of this season when he powered home under top weight on Paddy Power day in a very taking performance.
He then came out and won a farce of a race at Aintree in which almost half the fences weren’t jumped. The form amounts to nothing really but he still accounted for Holywell (a faller when already looking in trouble) who is still less than half the price.
His Lexus third over Christmas which saw him come home in front of Bobs Worth, Lord Windermere, Carlingford Lough and Boston Bob – all of whom are currently as good as half his price puts him right there with the best of this season’s staying chasers.
Given his trainer is no stranger to saddling multiple placed horses in the Gold Cup, again at 33/1 NRNB he is too big a price.
I would love nothing more than to see Boston Bob win the Cheltenham Gold Cup given I’ve been saying it will happen since his novice hurdle campaign, and although at the tail end of last season it looked like I might not have been as crazy as we all thought this season has not exactly filled me with confidence.
Couple that with his pretty woeful Cheltenham record and that thanks to Djakadam’s emergence as a legitimate contender Ruby Walsh will likely not take the ride, barring a monster performance in the Irish Hennessy that is, I’m hopeful rather than confident.
Either of the former winners in the field can leave behind pretty lacklustre campaigns away from Cheltenham and reclaim their crown, Lord Windermere in particular will be trained to the minute for this and you write either of the McManus pair off at your peril.
That said though, Silviniaco Conti aside, there is a very open look to this year’s Gold Cup, and in the absence of any recent high profile wins certain horses are almost insultingly overpriced compared to rivals their form ties in so closely with.
Houblon Des Obeaux and Sam Winner both fall in to that category and though neither will probably rack up a host of Grade 1 wins in their career like some of these have and likely will, in a year with only one real star, and a star that’s far from invincible at that, this could be their time to taste, or at least get close enough to taste, Gold Cup glory on the biggest stage of them all.
Recommendation(s):
Houblon Des Obeaux 0.5pt e/w @ 40/1 (Coral) [NRNB]
Sam Winner 0.25pt e/w @ 33/1 (Betfred, Paddy Power) [NRNB]
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