Layers taking no chances with Parrain in Power Gold Cup
The five-year-old French import is 8-1 favourite with the sponsors for the big handicap chase at Cheltenham on Saturday despite having had just two runs over fences in Britain.
Nicholls had been concerned about the horse’s fitness ahead of such a challenging race and was delighted with Mon Parrain’s work alongside Kauto Star and Big Buck’s at Exeter last Tuesday.
“He worked great at Exeter – I had been struggling to get him as fit as I would have liked, so that’s why we took him there and he worked nicely,” Nicholls told the Racing UK Podcast.
“He’s going to have to improve to win off a mark of 152. He’s been a bit of a hype horse.
“He won so well when he was thrown in at the weights at Sandown and then he did run well at Aintree (second in the Topham Chase), although he has gone up a few pounds for getting beat.
“I’ve not won the race before as generally mine are not well handicapped. It’s going to be a hard race to win, but he doesn’t know he’s favourite.”
Nicholls has two other possibles – fellow five-year-old Aerial and top-weight Poquelin, who was fifth 12 months ago.
All the leading fancies were among the 32 five-day acceptors, including the Philip Hobbs-trained Wishfull Thinking, Ferdy Murphy’s Divers, David Pipe’s Great Endeavour, David Bridgwater’s The Giant Bolster and Nicky Richards’ Noble Alan.
Nigel Twiston-Davies, who has won the race twice in the last three years with Imperial Commander (2008) and Little Josh (2010), is double-handed with Swincombe Rock and Billie Magern.
There are four Irish possibles in Paul Nolan’s Noble Prince, Henry de Bromhead’s Loosen My Load, Tom Taaffe’s Finger On the Pulse and Eoin Griffin’s Norther Bay.
Nolan has warned punters Noble Prince, an easy winner at Naas on his reappearance, is not yet a definite runner.
The County Wexford handler said: “We have left him in the Paddy Power Gold Cup and a decision on whether he runs will be made later in the week. We wanted to have the chance to make that decision so decided to confirm him.
“I’m very pleased with him and the horse seems to be in very good shape. It was a nice introduction to the season for him considering that he fell on his last run over fences.
“I couldn’t have been happier with his jumping, although it was just a school around.”
