BETFAIR CHASE
Saturday 25th November, 3:00pm
Bravemansgame @ 4/5
Protektorat @ 9/4
Royal Pagaille @ 17/2
Corach Rambler @ 11/1
view odds
*prices correct at time of writing.
RACE
Since its inception in 2005, Haydock’s Grade One Lancashire Chase – aka the Betfair Chase – (3-00) has become one of the most significant steeplechasing prizes of the season. Paul Nicholls has taken home the valuable pot on six occasions, four of them with Kauto Star and twice with Silviniaco Conti. In the 19th staging Team Nicholls is again centre stage.
MARKET
Nicholls’ Bravemansgame comes to Haydock easily the highest rated but off the back of a surprise if probably perfectly honourable defeat by Ireland’s Gentlemansgame in the Charlie Hall at Wetherby, having not been as fluent at the last as he had been at the earlier obstacles. That said, as well as being a notable talent, the Irish challenger was being conceded weight, plus he had the benefit of a previous run, and the Nicholls horses had not quite hit that kind of bulldozer form, when little goes wrong, that they seem to have reached now.
With Harry Cobden at Ascot, Daryl Jacob, three times the race-winner on Bristol de Mai, takes over on the Cheltenham Gold Cup runner-up, a decision by the champion trainer that has raised eyebrows, though perhaps riding arrangements for Ascot were finalised when the plan seemed to be for Bravemansgame to go straight to his King George defence. Elsewhere, Harry Skelton renews his partnership with last year’s runaway winner Protektorat; the jockey’s trainer-brother Dan describes the lightly-raced eight-year-old, the fifth horse home behind Galopin Des Champs in the Gold Cup, as “cherry ripe”, but lingering in the back of their minds is the fact that the stable’s ‘returning warriors’ have not all been enjoying the very best of form.
Royale Pagaille, sixth, fifth and sixth in the last three Gold Cups, is a Haydock chase specialist (form figures, all on heavy to good to soft: 1-1-2-1), while the Grand National winner Corach Rambler has some serious bouncing back to do after disappointing at Kelso in October.
CORNELIUS’ SELECTIONS
I am a big fan of red hot trainer/jockey combos, and will be looking hard in Haydock’s first (12-05) at Making Headway for the Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero stable and Henry Brooke who are Dijon mustard at the moment; a competitive stayers hurdle (2-20) is often a good indicator – Sam Spinner and Paisley Park both won it – and there’s an interesting contender at a price called Howlingmadmurdock which shaped up pretty well in defeat last season; at Ascot, if you fancy Harry Cobden to be champion jockey, and there’s been good money of late for him to be just that, then you – and he – might end up being pleased he’s there, and not at Haydock, for a heap of good chances, not least Pic D’Orhy renewing rivalry with Shishkin (1-30); and Irish star names are bound for Punchestown where Flooring Porter (1-23) and State Man (2-35) kick off proceedings ahead of Galopin Des Champs‘ scheduled Sunday reappearance.
THE WINNER
Surely Bravemansgame will erase bad Wetherby memories so long as they haven’t left their mark.
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