BELLSHILL HAS BITE

If You want to make any money today, you’ve got to look outside the Queen Mother Champion Chase because the long odds-on favourite is unbackable but also unopposable. But there is one favourite I am happy to take on: Might Bite in the RSa Chase and I’ll be backing BELLSHILL to beat him.

Might Bite was putting in one of the performances of the season when he fell at the last in the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase at Kempton. Well clear, he was about to post a quicker time than Thistlecrack in the King George vI Chase over the same course and distance later.

The Nico De Boinville-ridden novice chaser gained a confidence boosting win in an egg and spoon race at Doncaster subsequently and runs well on a flat track.

But the evidence is not so good here on the Cheltenham undulations where he has won a novice hurdle but has been beaten in both his chases.

Willie Mullins- trained Bellshill ran below-par last time at leopardstown and was beaten when he fell but he’s a grade-one winning novice hurdler and won his first two novice chases in style.

Mullins’ big rival for the Irish trainer’s championship, Gordon elliott, can win the Coral Cup with ToMBSToNe. The seven-year-old was fourth to altior in the 2016 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and looked like he was being aimed at yesterday’s Champion Hurdle until his team spied what they regard as a favourable handicap mark.

Poker Play’s french form suggests you can forget his British debut effort in a messy Kempton contest. He should go well in the fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle.