One Horse For Cheltenham On Friday

Friday at Cheltenham looks like a difficult card but the concluding race sparked my interest. The field is headed by Sporting John who took a step back in the right direction after struggling for form the season before. I held my reservations about him heading into the race, despite being a Grade 1 winning chaser neither of his other three runs was anywhere near that level. Failing to finish twice and also being beaten 33L on the other occasion. I had him down a mudlark who benefitted from a race falling apart. How wrong was I?

After many reviews of the race, I ended up being fairly impressed with the performance. I noted on the ‘Underrated vs Overrated’ series that he could even be an outside chance for the Stayers Hurdle given his solid back class as a novice hurdler. Now if he were to be up to that level then that would make this is a must-win race.

Sporting John will be locking horns with Onagatheringstorm once again, with only 2 lengths separating the pair last time out. Onagatheringstorm will be 4lbs better off with Sporting John this time around but given the manner in which the latter won I would side with him to confirm those placings.

Although Sporting John will be tough to beat I will be rowing back in with BOTOX HAS in this race. I was firmly in his camp last time out when running over 2-miles, he was badly outpaced very early on but stayed on strongly to claim 8th. He’s been dropped 4lbs for that run putting him off a very workable mark of 136, the lowest it's been since he’s tackled open company.

They’ve reached for the cheekpieces which is an interesting move. I looked into Gary Moore’s record with horses over hurdles in first-time cheekpieces and he comes away with a 12% win ratio and 36% win/place record from just 80 runners.

They are also giving him a sizeable step up in trip skipping middle distances and going straight to 3-miles. As noted earlier he shaped as if a step up in trip would suit and I’m hopeful this will bring out plenty of improvement.