Ten chasers to follow this season
CLASS ACT: Fact To File was a stunning winner of the Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham last March and looks destined to excel again this season. Picture: Alan Crowhurst/Getty
Alex Ferguson seemed to be in good form a few weeks back when he was filmed sharing his half-time chocolates with old nemesis Kenny Dalglish at Anfield. It was no surprise. United were beating Liverpool and the new season of his second favourite sporting passion, National Hunt racing was just kicking off in earnest.
Ferguson has shares in more than a couple of dozen horses and while the best of them, Caldwell Potter suffered a season-ending injury last week he still has lots of talent to look forward to.
Protektorat, trained by Dan Skelton is getting on a bit, but should still retain the ability to pick up a couple of graded contests, especially with some give in the ground. With Skelton hungry for enough prizemoney buffer to finally hold off a Willie Mullins surge for the trainers’ championship, his horses are likely to be fit and competitive from early on.
Protektorat’s rating of 165 would burden him with high weights in handicaps, so it will be interesting to see which path Skelton decides to travel with him. He has an entry in the Grade One Betfair Chase at Haydock the weekend after next, a race that tends to cut up and it could pay for plenty more half-time chocolates.
 Betfair Chase 14-1
Romeo Coolio was an expensively bought beast, costing close to half a million euros in the Cheltenham parade ring two and a half years ago. With a little luck in running he could recover a chunk of that investment this season. Since his bumper year ‘brand Romeo’ has always been ‘one for the future’ and having been switched to chasing that future is finally here. Although he won a Grade One at Leopardstown and was placed in another three at the big seasonal festivals Gordon Elliott has always believed he’d would only fulfil his true destiny when he went chasing and he was scarily impressive when hacking up at Down Royal recently.
: Arkle Chase 10-1
With only the four months to go until next year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup, Breeders’ Cup Turf-winning trainer Willie Mullins is responsible for seven of the top 10 in the ante-post betting market. Which also means that it’s only four months minus a week until Willie decides what he will actually run in the race. But there is one certainty. The great man would love to see Galopin Des Champs regain his crown after last year’s disappointment when a lacklustre second to Inothewayurthinkin. Happily, Galopin’s performance next time out at Punchestown was among his best, indicating that there was something amiss at the Festival.
Cheltenham Gold Cup 6-1
Trained in France by the up-and-coming Anglo-Swedish team of Noel George and Amanda Zetterholm, El Clavel looks to have the class and ability to progress significantly through the novice chasing ranks. Noel is the 25-year-old son of Tom George and along with Amanda he has established a progressive and forward-thinking operation that should make a lot of noise beyond France in the coming years. El Clavel improved significantly last year to win the French Champion Hurdle last May and George believes that “if we have a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner around the place, it will be him".
Brown Advisory Novices' Chase 20/1Â
The enigmatic chaser Il Est Francais runs like that nursery rhyme girl with the curl upon her forehead. When he is good, he is very very good, but when he is bad, he is horrid. Still only seven this talented chaser has only nine runs on the clock and, if he can at last find some consistency, he should make his presence felt in the flat track Grade One chases. Until recently he too was trained by George and Zetterman in France but has been rerouted back to Noel George’s father, Tom to be trained in England. They are hopeful that the change in environment will benefit him as much Scott McTominay’s move to Napoli or Marcus Rashford's to Barcelona.
King George VI Chase 10-1
Iroko is handled by another ‘shared trainer’ team of Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero at Stockton Hall stable Cheshire. An odd couple, Greenall is the son of British aristocrat Peter Greenall while Guerriero came from Italy originally to work in his father’s restaurant in Scotland. Along with the high-class Jagwar, Iroko has been their ‘breakthrough’ horse, winning at the Cheltenham Festival and then progressing up the chasing ranks to run fine race in last year’s Aintree National when he was fourth to Nick Rockett. This will be his main target again this year, but he is also capable of picking up good pots on the road to Liverpool.
: Grand National 20-1Â
Another trainer making bigger waves is Harry Fry who has had a strong start to the season. His best horse this term is likely to be the massive Gidleigh Park if he can overcome a health wrinkle. He twice suffered an irregular heartbeat last season and Fry has equipped the horse with a fitness tracking device to monitor his wellness. Gidleigh Park only ran three times last season, but these included a win over Caldwell Potter and a second to Impaire Et Passe, both solid Grade One animals. He could run in the Paddy Power Chase at Cheltenham next week where he would have a decent chance off 11-4.
Paddy Power Gold Cup 12-1
It might only be a matter of time before the ‘big two’ training empires of Mullins and Elliott become a threesome given the perpetual rise of Gavin Cromwell who made another great leap forward when winning the Gold Cup with Inothewayurthinkin. Cromwell will be looking to increase that momentum and the mare Only By Night has a part to play. Experienced and consistent, she has won or been placed in 12 of her 13 starts and ran a fine race when second to Jango Baie in the Arkle last March. She got her season off to a perfect start when winning a Grade Three at Naas on Sunday.
Mares' Chase 10-1.
Myretown was one of the more visually impressive winners at last year’s Cheltenham Festival when landing the very competitive Ultima Handicap Chaase by 11 lengths from the front. Lucinda Russell is an expert at improving long distance handicap chasers, including One For Arthur and Corach Rambler to win Aintree Nationals. Myretown looks to be another of this type and although raised a stone for his Festival win there should be more improvement to come. His main early season target is the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury at the end of the month, and he will be competitive even off his new rating of 142.
: Coral Gold Cup 8-1.Â
If Myretown was visually impressive in then Ultima, Fact To File was simply stunning when winning the Ryanair Chase a couple of days later. Rated at 173, he has won five of his nine races over fences, and the only mystery is what went wrong in the other four. Mullins is mobhanded with top-class staying chasers at the moment, so he is bound to run into familiar stablemates as the winter progresses. Like Inothewayurthinkin, he is owned by JP McManus so it’s probable they will be kept apart and Fact To File is likely to take in the King George at Kempton at Christmas before defending his Ryanair title in the spring.
: Ryanair Chase 5-2.
