JLT Novices' Chase 2016 - Festival Focus

Mai Time - The impressive Bristol De Mai can land the JLT.

Last year’s JLT served up one of the performances of the festival when Vautour slammed his rivals in scintillating style, and this year’s renewal of the novice chase at the intermediate distance had tantalisingly offered the prospect of another Willie Mullins star potentially lighting up Prestbury Park in Thursday’s opener.

Sadly though following his scarcely believable recovery to get back up and win after what ordinarily would have been a race-ending blunder at the last at Leopardstown Killultagh Vic has been ruled out of Cheltenham through injury.

In his place the consistently improving Bristol De Mai has taken favouritism and although with many running scared of Douvan in the Arkle this year’s race could be one of the strongest in a good few years, Nigel Twiston-Davies’ horse looks the rightful market leader at this point and I have no real desire to look elsewhere in the race given he looks a perfectly backable price at 7/2.

This race has been confirmed as his festival target by connections, in spite of an entry in the RSA, and his three wins over middle distances by a combined 45 lengths in winter ground would suggest he will have no trouble getting up that infamous hill.

Champion Hurdle 2016 - Festival Focus

Nic a Place - Nichols Canyon looks good value to chase home Faugheen in the Champion Hurdle.

With Faugheen’s utter dominance of the Champion Hurdle market there isn’t really an angle in to the race other than trying to find the horses that are going to fill the places in behind him.

The reigning champ looks so far clear of the remainder of the likely field that it almost seems pointless running the race at this point. This is horse racing, and more specifically Cheltenham, though and anything can, and often will, happen.

The only real play I can see in the Champion Hurdle as things stand therefore is to back the horse that spectacularly beat Faugheen at the beginning of the campaign Nichols Canyon, because following his comprehensive defeat to the horse dubbed ‘the machine’ last time out he has drifted out to pretty fair price to pick up the minor honours behind his stable mate.

Many heralded his victory over Faugheen as a fluke and subsequent events have probably proven that to be true, but there’s no denying he’s a top class performer in his own right – his string of Grade 1 wins are testament to that.

Triumph Hurdle 2016 - Festival Focus

Victory Dance - Let's Dance taken to Triumph in Friday's opener.

The Triumph Hurdle is usually one of the more difficult races to approach ante-post at the Cheltenham festival, but with this year’s renewal looking the widest open of all the major races there is plenty of value to be had.

Last Saturday’s Spring Juvenile Hurdle at Leopardstown quite often has a major bearing on the Triumph Hurdle market and this year is no exception as hot favourite Ivanovich Gorbatov was well and truly put in his place at the weekend.

It’s easy to say now, but he had looked woefully short for both based on what he had achieved to that point and the subsequent drift for the Triumph following Saturday’s comprehensive defeat sees his price more in line with where it should have been all along, though still remains too short in my humble opinion.

Other than the Aidan O’Brien trained favourite, Willie Mullins, Paul Nicholls and Alan King have the top of the market sewn up for the juvenile feature. Alan King in particular looks to have a particularly strong hand with Sceau Royal looking the pick of his squadron to me, he is very slick over his obstacles and has impressed thus far, but he is now half the price of the other horse I like for this race so is bypassed on value grounds.

Horses have tasted defeat in the Spring Juvenile and gone on to win the Triumph – most recently Tiger Roll two years ago – and I fancy that could be the case again this year and I’m not talking about the favourite.

Gold Cup 2016 – Festival Focus

Poli Express - Don Poli can enhance his Festival record to 3 out of 3 by winning the big one.

This year’s Gold Cup has been billed as one of the best in recent years and whilst a great race is surely in prospect, it is difficult to suggest a winner beyond the first six or so horses in the betting, indicating that perhaps this year’s race won’t be the deep, deep contest many had suggested.

As such, with the clutch of horses one can argue could win the race numbering but a few, there look to be some very solid place claims at the head of the market and with there still no out and out clear favourite there looks to be some boring – but sensible – each way bets to nothing or a small profit to be had, none more so than the selection.

Rather than go through why the other six or seven ‘big guns’ can and can’t win the race, as there are legitimate question marks hanging over all the main protagonists, I’ll focus on why the horse I think will win can land the festival blue riband.

In the wake of last year’s RSA I pegged Don Poli as a Gold Cup winner in waiting and backed him to ascend to such heights this season accordingly. 

RSA Chase 2016 - Festival Focus

We Could Be Heroes - Bryan Cooper and No More Heroes can land the RSA.

In spite of the fact that generally speaking the thought is that the RSA is a slog of real attrition that can rip the guts out of a horse, in recent years we’ve seen the classiest sorts in the race rise to the top.

With what we’ve seen to date this season only two horses set for the race look genuine top class staying chase prospects, with the remainder of the market made up of strong staying sorts who would want the relentless test of stamina the RSA is often billed as but doesn’t always transpire to be.

No More Heroes and More Of That look well clear of the remainder that are likely to take up their engagement in the race, and although Jonjo O’Neill’s former World Hurdle winner is the bigger price it is Gordon Elliot’s charge that appeals most for the novice staying chase event.

I’ve thought of No More Heroes as a future Gold Cup winner since his Bumper days and his novice chase campaign to date has done nothing but strengthen those thoughts.

He was a good novice hurdler last season and while he looked every inch a chaser killing time until his destiny called, he still managed an unlucky third in last year’s war of an Albert Bartlett.