CHELTENHAM FESTIVAL – WEDNESDAY
2:40 H’cap Hurdle
Impose Toi (Nico de Boinville)
He hasn’t run since November, when winning at Newbury, and is now up to a career high of 142, so he does need to improve quite a bit, but he’s very lightly raced and could still be on the upgrade. He’s quite laid back in his work and had a spin around Kempton a couple of weeks ago, which hardly blew us all away, so we’re putting the cheek pieces on, which will hopefully sharpen him up and the hurly burly of a race like this will help. He also runs well fresh.
Captain Morgs (Sam Twiston-Davies)
He’s been mixing it between hurdling and chasing, and while his two runs this season have been slightly underwhelming, we’ve given him a nice break during the winter, and he will really enjoy the lovely spring ground here. We also gave him an away day at Kempton, which will have blown the cobwebs away.
He won off a 1lbs higher mark than this around Cheltenham a couple of years ago, so is entitled to run well, but this is a fiercely competitive race.
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3:20 Cross Country H’cap Chase
Mister Coffey (Nico de Boinville)
Dear old Coffey has been with us for a while, and we all absolutely adore him; he’s part of the furniture, and I don’t know for sure but there can’t be many maiden chasers aged ten rated as high as he is! It’s amazing that he has never won over fences, but he’s posted some excellent efforts in defeat including being placed in TWO National Hunt Chases, and we even thought he was going to give us our elusive Grand National winner a couple of years ago!
We decided to try this at the start of the season, and he ran very well, finishing second on each occasion, and I’m extremely happy with his condition coming into this.
Anything can happen in these type of races, but he’s in great shape, enjoys his jumping, and I’m rather hopeful he can run very well. It would be some way to break his maiden tag, that’s for sure!
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4:00 G1 Champion Chase
Jonbon (Nico De Boinville)
Everything has gone well. He’s been training very, very well, and Paddy, who rides him every day, is extremely happy with him.
He seems much more the finished article nowadays and is very uncomplicated and easy to manoeuvre. A few years ago you had to handle him with kid gloves to keep a lid on him, but he’s very sensible in his races and at home nowadays, which makes our job a lot easier.
I think there is going to be lots of pace, which won’t bother him because his main asset is his jumping and while many have said he doesn’t handle Cheltenham, let’s not forget he was second in a Supreme to Constitution Hill and has also won two Shloer Chases at the track so I have no concerns where that is concerned.
Everyone knows what happened last year, when he was forced to miss the race, so let’s hope he can make up for lost time and finally be crowned the champion we all know he is.
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