DECEMBER GOLD CUP
Saturday 16th December, 1:50pm
Thunder Rock @ 7/2
Monmiral @ 11/2
So Scottish @ 11/2
Il Ridoto @ 6/1
view odds
*prices correct at time of writing.
RACE
No feature in the horse racing calendar can have a bigger identity crisis than Cheltenham’s December Gold Cup which, amongst its many varied guises, has been sponsored by a caviar company and been used to honour the memory of the horse-loving politician Robin Cook and as a vehicle to promote AP McCoy to be BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Consistently, however, it provides a fine challenge for those trying to accrue Christmas funds.
MARKET
Thunder Rock is a popular choice (1-50), with formbook students getting particularly excited. The Olly Murphy-trained seven-year-old has quality form with Datsalrightgino and Mahler Mission, first and second at Newbury the other day, plus Irish star Gerri Colombe, all of which could easily make him very well in at the weights. Paul Nicholls has a couple of big shouts.
Monmiral, behind Thunder Rock at Sandown in February, and a horse that has been aimed pretty high in three steeplechase starts but never disgraced. The other is Il Ridito, a winner at Cheltenham just the once, though in six visits to the track he has always run well, including when third in the equivalent race to this at the last meeting, with Fugitif fourth. Il Ridito and Fugitif, another which relishes the Cheltenham challenge, were comfortably swept aside last month; however, that felt like a decent staging of the race, and both can be expected to have come on for the run.
So Scottish, just behind those two in the Magners Plate at the Festival, is over from Ireland and well-touted, but there is a school of thought that frets about his stamina. Also challenging from across the Irish Sea are Fakir D’Oudairies, with plenty of weight, and Railway Hurricane which deserves respect having been a little luckless in two visits to the Cotswolds already this season.
Grandeur D’Ame impressed at Wetherby in November, but got clobbered by the handicapper for it, while Frero Banbou has been quietly doing well for a stable which remains in good heart.
CORNELIUS’ SELECTIONS
At the October meeting, In Excelsis Deo practically pushed the internet into meltdown such was the quantity of trackers visited after his keeping-on third, and now he’s back (1-15), with the form franked; three months after Mofasa, a big favourite at Worcester, was spectacularly turned over by fellow chase debutant Broadway Boy subsequent events make the result feel less surprising than it did, and both protagonists could have a profitable day, at 12-40 (Mofasa) and 2-25 (the ever-willing Broadway Boy), though the Boy’s opposition does include Protektorat, beaten almost out of sight at Haydock when the stable was less in-form than it is now; and having spent weeks on the cold list, trainer John McConnell’s fortunes have turned markedly upwards, and it’s perhaps worth noting that Moon D’Orange (3-00) was performing with credit even when others weren’t.
THE WINNER
The big one is more open than at first glance and high on the good credentials list is Fugitif.
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