Cheltenham each-way hopes: There are Better Days ahead...if you search hard enough
Fairyhouse 24-11-23
Key Race Trends: 11 of last 12 winners were rated 134+, 9 carried 11-1 or less and 8 of them were aged 5 or 6.
In the Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle two years ago, Ginto, trained by Gordon Elliot for owners Bective Stud, was travelling beautifully between the final two hurdles. At €475,000, Ginto was one of the most expensively sold NH horses and for those fleeting seconds it looked as though it might have been a wise purchase. Suddenly, disaster struck, the horse went horribly wrong and sadly couldn’t be saved.
The evening before the loss of Ginto, Bective were active in the Thursday post racing sale in the Cheltenham parade ring. They splashed out €275,000 for a Milan half-brother to five winners called Better Days Ahead.
Now six, and a winner of two of his seven starts, Better Days Ahead is a likely runner in the Martin Pipe off a competitive rating of 140, including a 4lb ’Irish tax’ allocated by the British handicapper. Although not as promising a prospect as Ginto it’s likely that there is still plenty of improvement to come. He was well held by Asian Master at Navan last time out, but the Supreme bound winner looks a high-grade animal and Better Days Ahead was conceding over a stone to the winner. He was ten lengths clear of the third home on heavy ground that might have been a disadvantage given his two successes had been on a sounder surface.
Bective Stud have invested heavily into Irish National Hunt racing in recent years without ever being lovingly embraced by lady luck. This year they had twenty-eight entries from sixteen different horses at the five-day stage, including the talented pair Firefox and Found a Fifty.
Their ‘scatter gun’ this week approach deserves some reward and Better Days Ahead would be an appropriately named winner.
GIT Maker (Jamie Snowden), Kim Muir Chase, Thursday 5.30, 25/1.
One of the recurring narratives in the lead up to this year’s festival has been an increasing concern at the health of the product itself and important voices are suggesting that the time is coming to change or die. While ‘die’ is definitely an overreach, advance ticket sales are down and have become so prohibitively expensive that an ‘easy pay’ instalment plan has been launched to try encourage financially pressed racegoers to turn up. The aggregate attendance last year was 40,000 down on the 2022 figures and the downward trend seems to be continuing this year too.
Apart from cost the other biggest talking point is the suitability of some races for an elite meeting. In this respect, the Kim Muir Chase for amateur riders is generally in the cross hairs of the most vocal reformers. First run in 1946 in memory of a deceased cavalry officer the race is limited to chasers rated 145 or under and confined to amateur jockeys. In other words, moderate horses with help from the saddle that can be charitably described as ‘variable.’ But something has to win it and GIT maker looks to have a decent outside chance. He is trained by the increasingly successful Jamie Snowden who had a best ever season last year with 44 winners and only needs another seven to beat that mark in this campaign. The lightly raced eight-year-old was last seen at Ascot just before Christmas when he was sixth to Victtorino in a valuable grade three handicap over three miles. Prior to that he’d won three of his five chases and was second in his other two.
GIT Maker is a versatile horse having won on going carrying every description from good to heavy and over distances ranging from two to three miles and could have enough to be a prominent horse in one of the week’s lesser races.
Another race whose presence on the festival roster continually divides opinion is the Pertemps Handicap Hurdle Final over three miles on Thursday. In fairness, the race itself is always compelling viewing, but it’s the qualifying races which give it a bad name as they can often seem to have more conjuring tricks and sleight of hand than a lifetime of Paul Daniels. Trainers, of course, vehemently reject any allegations of tenderly-ridden qualifiers. Several unexposed top-class animals first revealed their true ability in the Pertemps Final including Holywell, Presenting Percy, Delta Work and Sire Du Berlais who all improved a couple of stone following their wins.
Gowel Road qualified in February when he plugged on late to take fourth place at Exeter behind Shallow River, giving him a stone and a half. In December he was highly tried and unsurprisingly beaten into seventh by Crambo and Paisley Park in the Grade One Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot. Now back at his natural class, Nigel Twiston Davies’ eight-year-old looks versatile in both ground and distance and the trainer has won this race before with Rubhahunish so knows what it takes.
Gowel Road is a tough, consistent handicapper who has won four of his 16 starts and ran well at the festival last year when seventh to Commander of Fleet in the Coral Cup so the course holds no fears. Twiston Davis is positive about his chances, saying last week that “We have done a bit of tweaking about (since Exeter), and I think he could run a big race in the Pertemps if the ground came up soft. His mark is very reasonable, and he worked well this morning and appears to be coming to the boil.”
The Coral Cup is always one of the week's highlights and normally run at a cracking pace, with the lead likely to change often from the turn in to the straight. Over two miles and five furlongs the winner is normally a horse that has the tactical speed to remain attached to a fast pace, the staying ability to get up the hill and the courage to knuckle down and battle from the run to the last.
Might I is a half- brother to the multiple winner Binger Drinker and the high-class staying chaser, Stattler both of whom have won at Cheltenham. Trained by Harry Fry in deepest Dorset, Might I was bought cheaply as a yearling for €10,000 and the eight-year-old has already repaid ten times that amount in prizemoney.
Fry, 36, first made his bones as an assistant to Paul Nicholls and is credited with preparing Rock On Ruby when he beat Hurricane Fly in the 2012 Champion Hurdle even though Nicholls was the official trainer. In his own right he has sent out Uknowhatimeanharry and Love Envoi to win at the festival.
Although a negative on one of the key race trends in that he has only ever won once over hurdles, he has been placed behind horses of the quality of Constitution Hill, Jonbon and Complete Unknown. He was well supported in the Martin Pipe last year where he ran well to be fourth to Iroko he gets in rated at 142 and carries 11-9.
