They’re running scared and who can blame them.
We all love an unstoppable force but Galop Des Champs’ third straight Irish Gold Cup win at the weekend has only increased the spotlight on a few relatively movable objects.
Fact To File, who lowered the two-time Cheltenham Gold Cup champion’s colours in the John Durkan at the start of the season, is surely heading for the Ryanair Chase back over two miles, five furlongs at the Festival, while the team behind Il Est Francais have gone one step further and scratched him from the big one altogether.
That's the gallant King George runner-up out the way then, and it’s not hard to envisage his connections going the whole hog and being lured into a Queen Mother Champion Chase tilt over two miles. I’m convinced he’s fast - and classy - enough to hold his own against Jonbon and co.
Gordon Elliott doesn’t strike me as a man scared of many things in truth and he’d no doubt have loved another shot at the winner with last year’s Gold Cup second Gerri Colombe, another taken out of the race at the start of the week – this time through injury.
It’s cutting up alright, but is it simply a matter of case closed?
Grangeclare West, Monty’s Star, Embassy Gardens, Hewick and I Am Maximus were all comfortably accounted for in the Leopardstown backwash on Saturday, while the likeable L’Homme Presse has 15 and a half lengths to make up from last March when he split Corach Rambler and Bravemansgame, neither of whom are anywhere near the race 12 months on.
If we’re happy to rule out The Real Whacker and Gentlemansgame (neither Pat Neville nor Mouse Morris would thank me for doing so) on the basis of not having the raw materials, we’re essentially left with two and they’re both trained by young Irishmen who are not averse to performing the odd miracle.
On drying ground, the 2022 Martin Pipe winner Banbridge is a realistic threat to Galopin Des Champs.
Trained by Joseph O’Brien, who took him out of the 2023 Festival after it rained heavily and wished he’d done the same following last year’s Ryanair when the horse trailed in near the back, Banbridge is completely unexposed as a staying chaser but is bred for three miles-plus and hammered the point home at Kempton over Christmas.
"I think we could serve it up to them…” jockey JJ Slevin recently claimed and the race really needs Banbridge - and the weather - to play ball. A procession for the king wouldn't be much fun for any of us.
If it's a wet week then that leads us to the final piece of the puzzle, with a little more evidence still to emerge this month hopefully.
Corbetts Cross is one of those horses who has divided opinion for a while now. Would he have beaten Stay Away Fay in the Albert Bartlett had he not given Mark Walsh no chance when crashing through the wings of the last flight a couple of years ago? I’m still not so sure.
There was no doubting his superiority in last year's National Hunt Chase (replay below). And what else we do know is that trainer Emmet Mullins is a man with a plan and, as a stark reminder of how that tends to end up, he landed on two more sizeable handicap pots over hurdles at the Dublin Racing Festival.
So, if you’re among those who say ‘aye’ to the ‘case closed?’ conundrum, it should be noted that further substantiation might come to light in the Red Mills Chase at Gowran Park on February 15.
It’s the final shred as far as I can see and I expect to see a much sharper, fitter version of Corbetts Cross than the one who laboured his way to sixth in the King George.
To predict prep-race fireworks would be a mistake but you want to see a spark, you need to know the fire is still lit before going into a Gold Cup, and while Galopin Des Champ is obviously every bit as good as the revised odds imply, as it stands 20/1 Corbetts Cross is the one horse I refuse to accept has little hope of out-running his price.
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Published at 1322 GMT on 03/02/25
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