Graeme North looks at the Cheltenham Festival from a timefigure perspective and has one selection on day two.
Cheltenham Wednesday preview
If the first day at Cheltenham threw up something different from previous years on account of a changed running order and the re-siting of the final hurdle further back from the winning post than usual, the second day does too with the combined number of runners (38) in the opening two races, the Turners Novices’ Hurdle and the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase, being the largest number this century. A tough start to the day!
Paul Nicholls has made no secret of the high esteem in which he holds Turners favourite No Drama This End, a horse he has said repeatedly might be the next Denman, but it doesn’t appear to have scared the opposition off; quite the contrary, in fact, with 22 runners easily eclipsing the 17 who took part in 2010 and 2012. Both those renewals went to horses at or near the head of the market as this race invariably tends to do so, and though it’s fair to say No Drama This End hasn’t achieved as much on the clock as several of his rivals, he hasn’t been extended. The two with the best claims on time are I’ll Sort That and Skylight Hustle but I can’t say either of those has ‘wowed’ me this season.
Social media has been awash this week with rumours about Final Demand’s wellbeing, but his owner quashed those rumours in an At The Races interview on Monday and he lines up for the Brown Advisory with good credentials on time. His race-leading effort came in the Champion Novice Hurdle at the Punchestown Festival, but it shouldn’t be overlooked he was only third in the Turners last year and comes here off the back of a defeat over fences at the Dublin Racing Festival where he was behind two horses, Kaid d’Authie and Western Fold, who both take him on again here. Looking at the race in the round, Romeo Coolio has compiled the best overall collection of good performances on the clock and has been running as if he wants more of a test than he has had so far, but he’s unproven at three miles and there’s unlikely to be any hiding place here for suspect stamina.
The feature race of the day, the BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase, features the horse who is something of a standout across the week over fences from a timing perspective. That horse is Majborough and the 179 he recorded at the Dublin Racing Festival when taking apart the Dublin Chase is about as high as horses get nowadays; a repeat will surely be good enough here. However, he’s odds on, turned in a shoddy jumping display in the Arkle last year, as he did too on his reappearance in the Hilly Way, and whether cheekpieces will work as well again as they did at Leopardstown given this very different jumping test remains to be seen. Il Etait Temps is next best on time along with L’Eau Du Sud and they are tougher rivals than those he beat in Dublin where Marine Nationale was clearly well below his best.
