Defi to lead Chase charge
Marcus Armytage Favourite can make most of Altior absence and win Chacun duel in today’s feature race
Hobbs’ speed merchant can lift Champion Chase Tiger Roll under threat on cross-country return The absence of two-time winner Altior in today’s Betway Champion Chase leaves a gaping hole in what, until that point had looked the most mouth-watering contest at this meeting.
But, Altior or not, Defi Du Seuil already had the look of his anointed successor as the fastest chaser in these isles and the Philip Hobbstrained seven-year-old, one of the rising stars of the chasing ranks, can fill one of the few blanks in owner JP Mcmanus’s inventory of big-race victories.
In Altior’s absence from the division this season, while Nicky Henderson sought to find an upper limit to his stamina, Defi Du Seuil has made hay in the two-mile division winning the Shloer, Tingle Creek and Clarence House races and he sets the standard today.
If he has developed a habit it is a winning one and his six previous wins at the course will surely count hugely in his favour over his big Irish rival, the widely touted Willie Mullins trained Chacun Pour Soi, who made his first acquaintance with the place at exercise on Sunday morning.
Since winning the Triumph Hurdle in 2017 Defi Du Seuil has only missed out at the 2018 Festival, the season when his trainer’s horses were spectacularly out of form.
Last year he beat Lostintranslation in the JLT Chase over 2½ miles and, though he was subsequently beaten by the then unknown Chacun Pour Soi at Punchestown, it was at the end of a long season and you occasionally get slightly skewed results there.
This season, however, Defi Du Seuil has not looked short of speed back over the minimum trip, he handles any ground, that extra bit of stamina should serve him well in today’s conditions and in Barry Geraghty he has a jockey with five Champion Chases – a record only matched by Pat Taaffe – under his belt.
How many more Festivals Geraghty, 40, one of the great big-race jockeys of the past two decades and yesterday’s Champion Hurdle hero on Epatante, has in him only he knows. But, having succeeded Sir Anthony Mccoy as first jockey to Mcmanus, his position appears to extend only to his horses trained in Britain now.
In Ireland, Mark Walsh, who rode him a Champion Hurdle winner last year, is more favoured. But a sixth Champion Chase for the jockey and a first for Mcmanus, added to yesterday’s Champion Hurdle would remind the boss there are few better men to have in the saddle for you on the big occasion.
It certainly appears between the two horses whose formative years were both spent in the same stable, that of French trainer Emmanuel Clayeux, in the Auvergne, central France.
Defi Du Seuil’s Irish counterpart has taken a little longer to come to the boil this season but there is generally little wrong with the Mullins egg-timer when it comes to Cheltenham, although the trainer drew a rare first-day blank yesterday.
On his form with Altior – third to him in the Game Spirit on his first start of the season – Dynamite Dollars looks the only credible threat to the big two.
Without Altior, whose inflamed splint and consequent lameness failed to respond to treatment in time, racegoers only have to wait another 40 minutes for this week’s other established equine superstar, the two-time Grand National winner Tiger Roll, to appear.
Gordon Elliott’s 10-year-old is way ahead on ratings in his bid for a third Glenfarclas Cross-country Chase and a fifth Festival win to go with a Triumph and National Hunt Chase. But he comes in on the back of a rushed preparation.
He had a bone chip removed from a joint in the autumn and only started back cantering on New Year’s Day. Nevertheless he had a nice run back in the Boyne Hurdle last month and even threatened a second win in that race, briefly turning into Navan’s long straight before tiring.
That will have brought him forward and nothing turns him on like the twisting-turning cross-country course with its variety of obstacles.
However, one cannot help thinking that the National is the real target and, while it is bordering on blasphemy to even consider defeat, he looks vulnerable to the crack French cross-country horse, Easysland, who has won his past six including over course and distance in December, and arrives in fantastic form.
Elliott, however, should not return to his hotel empty-handed tonight.
Envoi Allen, last year’s bumper winner, is the banker of the week and, except for a fall, it is hard to see him being beaten in the opening Ballymore Hurdle.
The RSA Chase can go to the Irish too with the Henry de Bromheadrachael Blackmore combination’s Minella Indo, one of their two winners at last year’s meeting. He might lack a little bit of experience but he looks a good jumper (De Bromhead does a lot of loose schooling with his horses so they learn to sort it out for themselves) and the ground will be no bother to him.
Champ, Geraghty’s mount, was almost unbeaten but comes into the race on the back of an awful fall here on New Year’s Day, but he is an obvious threat if he puts in a clear round.
Colin Tizzard’s Copperhead has not done much wrong lately, winning at Kempton last time out but it may be telling that Robbie Power has opted to ride the stable’s other runner Slate House.