Busselton looks good value in Coral Gold Cup at Newbury
SATURDAY’S big handicap chase at Newbury, the Coral Gold Cup, is a 16-runner conundrum despite not looking like a vintage renewal. At the time of writing, it’s 6/1 the field.
Among the leading fancies, Remastered ran well in this last year and in his reappearance this season he was always travelling well when winning a three-mile hurdle at Aintree. Lucinda Russell’s Corach Rambler won the Ultima at the Cheltenham Festival this year, and although he is highly thought of by the stable, I’m not sure why he was the ante-post favourite.
Threeunderthrufive has been targeted at this race. His warm-up for it in a good Wetherby hurdle was slightly disappointing, but it should have put him spot on for this and Paul Nicholls remains in terrific form.
You have to respect anything from the Joseph O’Brien yard. Busselton is only five but has already won four chases and finished second in six. His form this year in chases and flat races is 4223121, and those wins were in 16-runner fields, one on good, one on soft-to-heavy. There are no negatives about him and he ought to give punters a run for their money.
Ladbrokes have given up their five-year sponsorship of “the old Hennessy”. Their title for it, the Ladbrokes Trophy, never really caught on. Now Corals have the chance to associate their name with it. The Hennessy sponsorship lasted 60 years, so they’ve got a long way to go.
Nicky Henderson came in for a fair amount of criticism as a result of withdrawing Constitution Hill at Ascot last weekend. Other prominent trainers also erred on the side of caution, but he used some unfortunate language in an interview the following day, saying the horse would be “wounded” and it would have been “suicidal” and “stupid” to run him. Those that did compete at Ascot had no complaints and the race times indicate the ground was good, erring on the soft side. The average slowness of all the races, compared with standard times, was 9.7 seconds. At Haydock it was 11.1 seconds, not so very different.
One wonders whether Constitution Hill would have been withdrawn if it was Champion Hurdle day. Lamenting the supposed lack of opportunities for the horse, Henderson has declared him to run against stable-mate and former champion Epatante in the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle. Course officials are confident the ground will be good to soft. Henderson will be in the firing line again if he withdraws one or the other.
The trouble is not the lack of opportunities for the better horses, but there are too many, which reduces the competitiveness of races. For the top hurdlers, last week’s Ascot Hurdle (admittedly over just short of two-and-a-half miles) and this week’s Fighting Fifth. For the staying chasers, there’s been the Betfair Chase and the Coral Gold Cup.
Despite the shortage of runners at Ascot, you couldn’t help but enjoy the victory of the enigmatic Goshen. The two-horse race had its fair share of tension too, with Coole Cody jumping scrappily yet keeping within hailing distance of free-running Saint Calvados until the leader, not surprisingly, ran out of steam.
L’Homme Presse is another who should be on show this weekend, having been pulled out of an Ascot engagement. He carries 12 stone in Newcastle’s Rehearsal Chase. The winners have started to flow for his trainer Venetia Williams but he is vulnerable to Into Overdrive, who with four consecutive victories behind him may be able to exploit a 26-pound weight concession.