It looks almost certain that Grands Crus and Cue Card will go off as the top two in the market for this valuable and important Steel Plate and Sections Novices Chase over 2½ miles at Cheltenham on Friday. Whoever wins the race will be joining a very elite list of past winners, including two, Denman and Imperial Commander who went on to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Grands Crus and Cue Card have earned themselves big reputations over the smaller obstacles over last couple of seasons with both winning at Grade 2 level but who are now both being primed for a season over fences. Currently Grand Crus has his nose in front in this market with odds of 6/4 available from Paddy Power who also quote Cue Card at 2/1.
Grands Crus of course created plenty of excitement last season when earning himself a crack at the World Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival by stylishly winning the 3 mile Grade 2 Cleeve Hurdle by ten lengths at Cheltenham in January. In the event the David Pipe trained six year old put up a great performance at the Festival, but finished in second place, almost two lengths down on the formidable 10/11 odds on favourite, Big Bucks who was winning the World Hurdle for a third consecutive year.
It has always been clear that he is built to be a chaser which is why punters should be encouraged to back him for this first attempt over fences, particularly as it appears he has taken to them very well in training. Certainly confidence in his ability is extremely high which is why, despite yet to win a novice chase he has been installed as the favourite for the RSA Chase at the 2012 Cheltenham Festival with odds currently of 8/1.
Having won the Champion Bumper with odds of 40/1 at the Cheltenham Festival in 2010, Cue Card, who is trained by Colin Tizzard, followed up by firstly winning an ungraded Novice Hurdle at Aintree in October before taking the Grade 2 Sharp Novices Hurdle at this meeting 12 months ago.
Those wins earned Cue Card antepost favouritism for the Supreme Novices Hurdle at the Festival earlier this year, and he remained favourite despite finishing second behind Menorah in the Grade 2 International Hurdle again at Cheltenham last December. As is now well known, he flopped in the ‘Supreme Novices’ after going off as the short odds favourite, managing only fourth place behind the Paul Nicholls trained Al Ferof. A final run of the season over 2½ miles in the Grade 2 Mersey Hurdle at Aintree in a month later in April saw no improvement, this time he finished 13 lengths behind the winner Spirit Son, who had also finished in front of him in the ‘Supreme’.
Following those defeats there was only one way forward with the five year which was to take him chasing this season. After successfully schooling him over the bigger obstacles at home, he made an impressive winning debut over fences in a 2m4f novice chase at Chepstow last month in a small field of runners. These included Micheal Flips and Silviniaco Conti, both Grade 2 winners over hurdles and who have both won over fences since. Indeed Silviniaco Conti, who is also trained by Paul Nicholls won the Grade 2 Rising Stars Chase at Wincanton last week by no less than 25 lengths!
With form as good as that it is easy to see why Cue Card is once again making exciting headlines. Should he follow up with a win in this, he would almost certainly usurp Grands Crus place at the top of the antepost market for the RSA Chase, defeat however, could possibly mean that it will be ‘back to the drawing board’ for Tizzard and connections to devise a Plan B.
There are of course others in this field for this race on Friday, but of those, only the Martin Keighley trained Champion Court and perhaps Zaynar, now with the Nick Williams stable have genuine chances. Currently Champion Court, has odds of 6/1 with paddy power but this is a horse who won the Grade 2 Neptune Investment Management Novice Hurdle over 2m5f at this meeting last year. He also ran with great credit when 4th behind Bobs Worth in the Grade 1 Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle over 3 miles at the 2011 Cheltenham Festival. Like the two market principles in this he too is just beginning his chasing career, although this will be his third race over fences this season already. He unseated his jockey in his first outing at Perth in September, but found the winners enclosure at Aintree last time out after claiming the Matalan Novice Chase over 2m4f.
The 2009 Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle winner, Zaynar who was also third in the 2010 Champion Hurdle behind Binocular appears to have lost much of his early spark and although he runs consistently enough he has not won a race since December 2009. He has now moved stables from Nicky Henderson to that of Nick Williams which quite often helps rather than hinders a horse’s progress. He has had just one attempt over fences which came in a Novice Chase at Cheltenham in October, but only managed third place in a six runner field in which he blundered once or twice on the way round too. With odds of 10/1 he is probably best left alone as a potential winner of this, but do not write him off from winning at least once this season for his new trainer.
6/4 Grands Crus
2/1 Cue Card
6/1 Champion Court
10/1 Zaynar
14/1 Dualla Lord
25/1 Vino Griego
25/1 Sybarite
Odds provided by Paddy Power.com
Posted: Thursday, 10th November 2011
Author: Rodney Wise
Tags: cheltenham, steel plate and sections novice chase, grands crus, paddypower,
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