Saturday racing highlights: Definitly Red underlines Cheltenham Gold Cup credentials

18:16 · SAT January 27, 2018

Matt Brocklebank unearths a couple of potential Cheltenham Festival angles following Saturday's racing, as Gold Present's form received two significant boosts.

Definitly may be a Gold Cup player

Lydia Hislop hit the nail on the head on Racing UK when it comes to weighing up the merits of backing Definitly Red for the Cheltenham Gold Cup prior to the final recognised trial at Leopardstown next weekend Sunday - essentially highlighting the fairly obvious fact that only one (or none, of course) from Coney Island, Our Duke, Road To Respect, Anibale Fly and Minella Rocco will enhance their Festival claims with victory in the Irish Gold Cup.

There are obviously cases of horses shortening in antepost markets following defeat in major trials (how dare they?), but it's a pretty rare thing to be fair and in all likelihood a couple of the aforementioned Dublin Racing Festival entrants will be at least a couple of points longer for the big one in March when the music stops at the end of next weekend.

Which all contributes to Definitly Red looking a perfectly fair price at 25/1. He's as short as 14s in places and could be even tighter than that come the day if the race cuts up as it usually does.

Here we have an improving nine-year-old who clearly likes the track, handles any ground and tends to thrive in the spring. He won a Listed handicap chase at Ayr in April 2016 and took the Grimthorpe Chase at Doncaster by 17 lengths last March, while his subsequent Grand National effort can be excused as he was badly hampered at Bechers before the saddle slipped.

Saturday's effort in the Cotswold Chase was a career best by some way and there's every chance he can take another small step up to put him on the verges of a serious Gold Cup bid in six weeks' time.

🔴 Definitly Red 👏pic.twitter.com/9BNdqKVAab
— Sporting Life (@SportingLife) January 27, 2018

Present form franked

The standout performance on Cheltenham Trials Day was undoubtedly the 17-length demolition job by Frodon in the Crest Nicholson Handicap.

This race, invariably run on terrible ground, can throw up some funny results with wide-margin winners not uncommon, but there was something exceptionally authoritative about this performance from the six-year-old Frodon, under the burgeoning talent of Bryony Frost.

He's always been a good horse - he was 'well placed' (ha!) to win three times as a novice last term, including the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup at Cheltenham in December 2016, and he was an eight-length second to Might Bite earlier this season at Sandown.

The eye-catching piece of Frodon's form in light of Saturday's runaway victory, however, is the three-length second he posted behind Gold Present when receiving 1lb from that rival at Ascot just before Christmas.

Perhaps he was in front a bit too soon on that occasion; perhaps he didn't quite see out the three mile trip. I suspect both were contributing factors, but the over-riding impression is that he faced a seriously good rival in Gold Present.

And Nicky Henderson's representative got another boost to his form on Saturday when Warriors Tale, the horse he'd beaten a neck at Newbury at the start of December, went down by a gnat's whisker to Wakanda in the Sky Bet Chase at Doncaster.

Gold Present, a fine second to Tully East in the big novices' handicap at the Festival last term, is now 2-2 this season and is 20/1 for the Ryanair Chase (bigger than the general 16s about Frodon) but will make even more appeal if pitched into the Ultima Business Solutions Handicap Chase on Cheltenham Tuesday, for which he is a 16/1 chance.

I suspect a revised mark of 155 is not completely beyond this rapidly-progressive eight-year-old.

Gold Present ran well at the Festival last year

Yo Adrien!

Wakanda obviously stole the headlines on Sky Bet Chase day at Doncaster but he's highly unlikely to be seen at Cheltenham in March and the Lightning Novices' Chase may be a better place to look for Festival clues.

Sceau Royal was asked some serious questions by Dan Skelton's Shantou Rock and responded as willingly as we've come to expect from the quality six-year-old.

Options remain open for him and he'll probably take his chance in the Arkle, no matter where Footpad - who races for the same owners - ends up.

The runner-up is going to face the wrath of the assessor and now stands zero chance of getting into the (0-145) Close Brothers Novices' Handicap Chase at Cheltenham, but that's not the case for the third home Adrien Du Pont, who merits a second look.

He's a fascinating horse as he's mixed it in pretty good company since winning a small race at Fontwell on his first try over fences back in October.

Third behind Willoughby Court and Yanworth at Newbury and then second to Coney Island at Ascot, he came into the Lightning with a mark of 145 and will be unlucky to go up after finishing 13 lengths behind the winner.

Presuming he avoids a rise, he looks certain to step back up in distance for the Close Brothers and although his Cheltenham record isn't brilliant, he was second to Sceau Royal there in a Triumph trial a couple of seasons ago before he won the Grade One at Chepstow in the same campaign.

His only handicap victory to date came in an Ascot hurdle from a mark of 139 so he's not thrown in by any means, but he's got time on his side, looks a work in progress for Paul Nicholls and is well worth monitoring in the markets once his Festival target becomes a little clearer.