IMPERIAL CUP
Saturday 9th March, 2:25pm
Bad @ 5/1
Jipcot @ 5/1
Go Dante @ 11/2
Making Headway @ 13/2
Sans Bruit @ 8/1
Favoir @ 9/1
view odds
*prices correct at time of writing.
RACE
Had you asked a racing enthusiast at the first Gold Cup 100 years ago next week to name the season’s most significant hurdle – the Champion Hurdle wasn’t to join the Cheltenham programme for three more years – they’d have almost certainly given the nod to Sandown’s Imperial Cup. A century on, the race (2-25) acts as something of a warm-up for the action in the Cotswolds, though the once regular bonus if the winner went on to Festival success is a non-runner.
MARKET
Ben Pauling has enjoyed another prolific season and is responsible for some of the biggest players of the day at Sandown, notably Jipcot and Bad in this. Jipcot didn’t get his chasing show entirely on the road in the autumn, but recorded a stylish hurdles success in a small race at Huntingdon last weekend for which he gets a seven-pound penalty.
Despite no wins, Bad has run really well in a series of competitive handicaps and, after a breathing procedure and with cheekpieces added, looked sure to come good last time until reeled in late. Go Dante is quite an attractive proposition on the same mark as when third behind Champion Hurdle-bound Iberico Lord at Newbury, when the Dan Skelton pair Faivoir and Knickerbockerglory put in good efforts to finish fifth and sixth respectively.
Faivoir thrives in springtime and runs off a similar weight-level as when winning the County Hurdle (for which he holds an entry next week) twelve months ago, while prominently-ridden Knickerbockerglory, last year’s runner-up here, isn’t especially well-weighted but has a good-value three-pound claimer aboard.
Never involved at Newbury was Spirit D’Aunou whose uncharacteristic blip should probably be forgiven, while his stablemate Junkanoo is a promising novice. Making Headway, another novice, put in an accomplished performance elsewhere on that programme at Newbury.
Sans Bruit will have learnt from his British debut at Doncaster when rather running out of puff after pulling hard. Georgi Girl has hurtled up the weights but has earned it. Metier, the Chester Cup winner, is competing over obstacles for the first time since being pulled up in last year’s race.
CORNELIUS’ QUARTET
Ben Pauling isn’t strong only in the feature, and at 1-50 he runs Champagne Twist which has been shaping up very nicely thank you.
Form book students will no doubt be making Golden Son (3-35) a principal pick as he’s been nudged up just two pounds for holding off subsequent winner Heltenham in first-time cheek pieces at Kempton last month.
At Wolverhampton, Andrew Balding and David Probert have won the Lincoln Trial (3-15) twice in the last five years, and Sudden Ambush’s storming success at Kempton last month indicates that he could make it a third.
I’m at Hereford today – please come and say hi – and at 4-35 solid-as-a-rock Amelia’s Dance has an excellent opportunity to overcome recent seconditis.
THE WINNER
I’m hoping Ben Jones employs all of his cunning to deliver Bad very late, and hope Spirit D’Aunou isn’t too far away.
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