Timeform continue their recap of the 2022/23 National Hunt season with a summary of the highest-rated novice chasers in training.
It was the first two from the previous season’s Top Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree who emerged as the standout novice chasers of 2022/23. However, when their paths crossed again in the Sporting Life Arkle at Cheltenham, it was a different result as El Fabiolo (c175p) gained his revenge for his narrow defeat at Aintree with a decisive five-and-a-half-length verdict over Jonbon (c169).
That was a top-class effort from El Fabiolo on just his third start over fences (watch the replay below), his two earlier wins including the Irish Arkle at Leopardstown which he won by 10 lengths from the subsequent Manifesto Novices’ Chase winner Banbridge (c158). El Fabiolo cruised home in the Barberstown Castle Novice Chase at Punchestown from stablemate Dysart Dynamo (c155) to keep his unbeaten record over fences intact.
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The Arkle, in which his jumping was put under pressure, was Jonbon’s only defeat in six chases, with his best performance coming when he won the Celebration Chase at Sandown on his final start of the campaign. His other Grade 1 wins came in the Henry VIII Novices’ Chase, also at Sandown, and in the Maghull Novices’ Chase at Aintree where he faced a simple task.
Gordon Elliott sadly lost one of his best novices, Mighty Potter (c161), a dual Grade 1 winner at Fairyhouse and Leopardstown before the turn of the year, after a fatal fall at Fairyhouse in the spring, but the stable has a top-class prospect still in Gerri Colombe (c162p), who won three Grade 1 contests – including the Scilly Isles Novices’ Chase at Sandown and Mildmay Novices’ Chase at Aintree – to stamp him as the best of what wasn’t the strongest crop of staying novices.
Gerri Colombe’s only defeat, by a short head at that, came in the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase at Cheltenham (replay below) which was won by The Real Whacker (c158p), one of the few British-trained horses among the season’s best novice chasers. A likeable front runner, The Real Whacker won all three of his chases at Cheltenham for Patrick Neville, including the Dipper Novices’ Chase, and will no doubt be another aimed at the Gold Cup.
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Discover Sporting Life Plus BenefitsPaul Nicholls’ Stage Star (c154), another front runner, landed the Turners’ Novices Chase at the Festival among his four wins. Impervious (c159p) won all five of her starts for Colm Murphy, including Grade 2 mares’ events at both the Cheltenham and Punchestown Festivals. Feronily (c156p) had an unorthodox campaign for Emmet Mullins given he only made his Rules debut in a bumper in December but landed the Champion Novice Chase at Punchestown on just his second start over fences.
While El Fabiolo was much the best of Willie Mullins’ latest crop of novices, others of note included Kilcruit (c159), winner of the novice handicap chase at Punchestown, second-season novice Gaillard du Mesnil (c157), who won the National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham before finishing third in the Grand National, Irish Grand National winner I Am Maximus (c156), Arkle third Saint Roi (c157) and the mare Dinoblue (c155p), who won handicaps at Fairyhouse and Punchestown in the spring.
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