Road To Cheltenham: Chacun Pour Soi's actions speak louder than words

While the defending champion’s practice swings are earning rave reviews from his coach, we have a new clubhouse leader. His second round completed, Chacun Pour Soi tops the leaderboard after an exhilarating tussle with a traditionally high-scoring opponent. His Dublin Chase success is not only the best performance of his career, but also the most substantial two-mile-chasing form of the season.

Originally intended as a foil to his stable-companion in this Leopardstown showdown, via his deep-rooted compulsion to race hard, Ornua helped ensure the pace was strong even though trainer Henry de Bromhead opted to withdraw A Plus Tard due to unfavourably goodish ground. (I think that’s what the going was, but I can’t be sure because I don’t know how far “2m1f” at Leopardstown is in reality. Yes, I have trust issues.)

But he was contentedly joined in the vanguard by Min, who was not going to take the insult of wearing owner Rich Ricci’s second colours lying down. He’s rated 171, you know, had won this Grade One for the past two years and supplemented that success with a front-running demolition of the Melling Chase at Aintree last April (which admittedly flatters him, in my opinion). How very dare you.

From the first fence – where another Willie Mullins-trained missionary Cilaos Emery (talk about fluffing your big moment) fell after hitting the top and crumpling on landing – Min was damn well up for it. He nosed between Ornua and Chacun Pour Soi on the approach and, from there, was clear in his resolve to compel the chief agitator to win rather than be handed the throne.

Ornua cried enough at the fifth, jumping right and almost inconveniencing Min, which was where the pursuit was left to Chacun Pour Soi and, in his wake, yet another stablemate in Duc Des Genievres. He’s only last year’s Arkle winner, you know. Nowt special.

Whereas Chacun Pour Soi found it easy to keep pace, the grey found himself increasingly on the stretch and his lunge three out foretold of his fall at the next. The winner joined the lead three out and the pair trapped on again approaching the penultimate fence, where Min was headed but jumped well under pressure.

On landing, Paul Townend’s mount assumed control but he couldn’t kill the race, dead. Min wasn’t having that and, as a proven stayer over 2m4f on a flat track and a more convincing middle-range performer all round these days, why should he have done?

He hung in there, so that Chacun Pour Soi had to get the last right – which he did, after a fashion, getting in a bit close. Min brushed through it and tried like billy-o (I’ve never written that phrase before in my life) all the way to the line. The disparity was three-and-three-quarter lengths and the Irish handicapper raised the winner 3lb to 172. A slightly conservative assessment, in my view.

Perhaps Min was mildly compromised by the goading presence of Ornua early on, but the way he finished off his race makes me doubt that. Chacun Pour Soi might have enjoyed the beau-ideal trip but I’m more inclined to believe he just had to be smart to beat a very good horse under conditions we know suited the vanquished.

My only quibble is that both must have had hard races – it was comfortably swifter than the following Arkle Novice Chase at every stage – but I’m going to have to file that under How The Hell Do You Monetise That? (Answer: apart from in bang-to-rights instances, you can’t – but you sound hellish convincing. #progambler34154778 #strokeschin)

So, then there were three for the Champion Chase – at least there are at the moment, unless you want to give Cilaos Emery a free pass. He certainly remains an unknown quantity to the extent that many a Festival pundit will soon be arguing the case for 12-1 non-runner-no-bet (with Ladbrokes) about a horse whose form before Saturday was in the same ball-park as that of Chacun Pour Soi and hasn’t had the chance to disprove it.

Of course, Chacun Pour Soi lacks something his main two rivals can readily boast: a proven aptitude not only for Cheltenham but at the Festival itself. Altior has triumphed there on four successive occasions – two Queen Mums, an Arkle and a Supreme (which is either a glorious romp or not a film to watch with the family) – and Defi Du Seuil twice, recovering from his post-Triumph slump with victory in last term’s JLT (now Marsh) Chase.

And, of course, Altior beat Min by seven lengths – count ‘em – when they met back in the heady days of the 2018 Champion Chase (the former’s career zenith) and by more than 11 in the same event last year. How d’ya like dem apples, Chacun Pour Soi? (Or are they pears...?)

But whereas it’s required actual, contemporary form to constrict Chacun’s odds to 3-1 at best, it has taken merely the word of Nicky Henderson in saying Altior is working “as well as ever” for the horse to be broadly trimmed to the same price ahead of his latest intended comeback this weekend in the artist formerly known as the Game Spirit Chase.

“Altior schooled last week [and] you would seriously wonder why in the world we would want to go further than two miles,” Henderson said. “No horse in England would keep up with what he was going the other day, not one. Blink and you would have missed it but that’s him.”

Last week I scoffed at the idea that "the media" had played any role in shaping Altior’s campaign this season but that’s the straw Henderson apparently clutched at Monday's press event plugging Newbury’s Saturday card. (Unless he meant some other dark forces. The EU, perhaps?) #Nickyneverwanted, said Nicky.

“We said we would have a go at a longer distance, but what we did was leave all the other races like the Clarence House going begging,” he said. “It was the wrong thing to do but there was a lot of pressure put on us, saying: ‘Come on, do something different. If you say he is a champion, prove he can stay. Otherwise he is just a boring two-mile chaser.’ So, he’s a boring two-mile chaser.”

This makes me wonder whether Henderson is a secret Twitter addict because that’s the only place I’ve witnessed such a view being expressed. Truly, this Unibet association has cost dear. Nicky, honey: it’s not real life. You don’t have to prove yourself to them. (Alternatively: Nicky, you idiot! Why have you entered Pym in the RSA when any fool knows he’s the Ultima winner? #DuhHuh)

Or else this is a back-fitting narrative. A tale of altruism and self-sacrifice.

“I just think Ascot didn’t help either horse at the end of the day,” Henderson said, referring to Cyrname’s defeat of Altior in November. “The problem was it was the first run of the season. If you do that later in the campaign that’s fine, but they were both having their first run and that is not the time to do that.

“Paul [Nicholls, Cyrname’s trainer] might disagree with me totally but his horse didn’t run his race in the King George and we took a long time to get over [the encounter]. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have run but you are then leaving the race as a walkover. What would the racing public say about that?”

It comes down to whether you either buy this yak or you don’t. Yer pays your money and yer takes your choice. I can only point out that when I asked Henderson in December at Cheltenham – when he’d announced via his Unibet blog that Altior would not contest the King George – whether he’d underestimated Cyrname, he vigorously denied it.

Now, that race is the source of all evil. Perhaps Henderson has evolved to hold that view – perfectly valid, if so. Or perhaps he’s looking for excuses because, if you take his most recent words literally, he’s contradicting himself. The trip was wrong but the horse stayed. He didn’t underestimate Cyrname but Altior wasn’t fit enough for the encounter. Come again?

“Altior has to prove himself again but I think he can,” he added. “He’s been beaten once in a 2m5f race in a bog, when he wasn’t half-ready for it. He got beaten. It was going to happen and that was the day. It wasn’t stamina because he didn’t finish any further behind the winner than he was two out. He wasn’t straight enough and the ground was horrible.”

When the mighty Sprinter Sacre had his fibrillating-heart problem, you felt that Henderson was straightforwardly conveying the truth as he knew it. Here, I feel less confident in the transaction – not because I think the trainer is short-changing us, but rather because I sense he’s unsure, too, and might be trying to convince himself as well as us. I might be wrong but I can stand 3-1 if I am.

However, the fact remains that I take a relatively positive view of Altior’s Ascot match with Cyrname – in terms of bare figures, if not in terms of what jumping like that might mean for dropping back from 2m5f to face younger crack chasers over two miles of the speedy Old Course and after the potential toll of 19 straight victories.

Meanwhile, trainer Philip Hobbs was practising a potential self-delusion of his own, in the sense that he – rather than JP McManus’s representative on Earth, racing manager Frank Berry – will decide whether Defi Du Seuil runs here or in the Ryanair.

“Chacun Pour Soi ran very well but we'll watch Altior this weekend as well – that's the important thing really,” Hobbs told the Racing Post. “We'll see what happens on Saturday and then decide which race we go for.”

Altior himself is set to encounter Dynamite Dollars this Saturday, sidelined since winning the fourth of his five novice-chasing starts at Doncaster in January of last year. Trainer Paul Nicholls is using the Game Spirit as a springboard to the Cheltenham Festival, destination undecided.

“It's great to have him back," Nicholls told the Racing Post. “He needs a day out and will need the run. It will tell us if he's good enough for a Champion Chase, whether we go for a Ryanair or find a handicap for him.

"It strikes me he'll improve on anything he does on Saturday. He has schooled well and I can't do anymore except give him a run. Altior will be hard to beat but this was the obvious race to put him in. He's a tank of a horse. He's not like Cyrname or other lean and light horses who you can easily get fit. I've done a lot with him.”

Min now edges A Plus Tard as favourite for the Ryanair, as well he should. (Linear form students: I agree, Altior was beaten on the only occasion over obstacles that he stepped up beyond 2m1f!) After all, Min bothered to turn up for the Dublin Chase and finished second to Chacun Pour Soi, who’d palpably improved on his mildly divisive seasonal debut when Henry de Bromhead’s chaser beat him.

Three times Min has watched Altior’s backside disappear ahead of him up Cheltenham’s final hill, even if the small print of those defeats provides some marginal caveats. Unless he needs counselling, it seems unlikely that he’ll go back for more – especially with the bang two-miler Chacun Pour Soi in the same ownership.

The intriguing factor is how he’ll be ridden, given his career peak came when dominating (an inferior or, at the time, incapable field) at Aintree and yet trainer Willie Mullins has mentioned getting the tactics wrong when Ruby Walsh held him up in last year’s Queen Mum with that, erm, trying to find the word, um... negative... ride. Before Aintree, Min had appeared to thrive when played like a decisive trump card off a strong pace.

I can’t see Min being fazed by the presence of Frodon – though admittedly many another horse has in the past – because he was unfazed by Ornua at Leopardstown and jumped soundly when put under pressure by Chacun Pour Soi. Also, I’m unconvinced the Ryanair titleholder is this season capable of mustering the metronomic rhythm that saw him triumph last March.

In fact, Min comfortably chasing Frodon – a mostly inferior horse, according to the formbook – and then moving on from two out would be an archetypally triumphant Ryanair run-style. It’s just whether the final hill is quite for him. These days, I have come to fear it might not quite be.

The passing risk that A Plus Tard would instead contest the Queen Mum has surely evaporated with trainer Henry de Bromhead’s decision to pursue discretion rather than valour at Leopardstown.

“It’s a combination of the ground and that trip,” he explained on Racing TV. “Two miles is pretty sharp for him. It was soft at Christmas so it all fell right for him, but today it seems a good bit better, so we said we’d give it a miss. I don’t see any necessity to run again before Cheltenham – he’s in mighty form.”

De Bromhead had previously stated that two miles over Cheltenham’s Old Course in March for the Champion Chase is a very different test to 2m1f on likely softer ground at Leopardstown, perhaps drawing on his past experiences with Sizing Europe and Special Tiara (the latter of whom is currently standing six miles off a fence at Kempton, and clearing it comfortably, on my study wall).

That suggests he only took the smallest of prompts to duck the Dublin Racing Festival and target last year’s emphatic Close Brothers victor for this intermediate-trip Grade One. A Plus Tard’s peak may not yet have been sighted.

Duc De Genievres, who fell when struggling to remain remotely in contention two out in the Dublin Chase, shaped here and in last year’s Arkle as though he needs further – or to be held up off a suicidal pace. He might have been both theoretically disadvantaged and actually flattered by a steadily-run Desert Orchid Chase on his penultimate start.

What I mean by that is that I still doubt he’s in anything like last term’s form, even if his literal achievement at Kempton had suggested he might be coming to hand.

An improvement in his jumping technique has seen Delta Work convincingly rehabilitated as a credible Gold Cup contender. Too scruffy all season as a novice, it partly proved his undoing in the 2019 RSA Chase – that and the small matter of encountering two smart rivals.

In the Savills Chase, it was much better but Jack Kennedy carefully kept him to the outside. Last time out in the Irish Gold Cup – his second Grade One win in open company, again at Leopardstown – he mixed in properly and produced his best round yet.

He also shaped as though a more thorough test of stamina, such as that provided by Cheltenham, would only prove to his advantage. Having steadily worked into the race and comfortably moved on with the principals as lesser rivals dropped away, he was briefly niggled along entering the home turn. Yet once Kennedy had switched him inside and got rolling, there was an inevitability about the outcome.

That’s not to say Kemboy didn’t put up a fight – he kept trying all the way to the line, which was more than Presenting Percy was capable of doing. However, this was the fiercest collection of right-adjusting jumping I’ve yet seen from Kemboy. On that basis, although he doubtless built on his seasonal debut, I can’t have him performing to his Aintree or Punchestown best.

Paul Townend positioned him down the inside of horses initially, which seemed to cause him to brake carefully going into his fences until the fourth, from which point he had the space to give full vent to his proclivities. This habit occasionally undermines what is, at base, a sound jumping technique.

He jumped straight at the last, under pressure to keep in the fight, but it was almost as though the concentration required to achieve that made him pause to congratulate himself on landing. You can envisage Cheltenham being far less forgiving of this trait so, while I have no hesitation in regarding him as top-class, I still can’t see him winning a Gold Cup.

Ditto Presenting Percy, who was typically much discussed and backed beforehand despite what I felt to be, on balance, a disconcerting finishing effort when fading to fifth in the Savills Chase. Here, he jumped better and travelled into the race like a threat but was being outmatched approaching the last. There was nothing left open to interpretation on this occasion from rider Davy Russell: on the run-in, he asked for more and his mount couldn’t give it.

It’s hard to frame a case for why he should fare any better in a Gold Cup – even if the ground came up testing, there are opponents better poised to benefit. Of those towards the fore of this market, at odds ranging from 8-1 to 14-1 he is perhaps the least attractive proposition.

Fourth-placed Jett deserves an honourable mention – not least because a regular correspondent, his biggest fan @leighfarmstrong, probably broke the arm of his sofa three out when cheering him on. Jett: throw your pager out the window, call Eir to cut the phone calls, break your lease so you can move... anything. You don’t want to end up a statistic.

Returning to the winner, he’s now trading at odds similar to those of Santini – some bookmakers slightly favour one or the other – who finished a length-and-three-quarters ahead of him when second to everyone’s favourite camel-shaped chaser, the sadly sidelined Topofthegame, in last year’s RSA.

As I’ve mentioned previously, Delta Work’s trainer Gordon Elliott argued shortly afterwards that the result would have been different had then-rider Russell pressed on sooner. Personally, I think it made little difference – certainly less difference than the standard of his jumping – because pressing on sooner would have suited stamina-packed Santini just as well and merely given Topofthgame a lead for longer.

Talking of Russell, there is sadly a vacancy on Delta Work to the undoubted extreme frustration of Kennedy, who fractured his right femur barely half an hour after winning the Irish Gold Cup and misses the Cheltenham Festival. Russell exclusively partnered the horse last season but is currently committed to Presenting Percy. If only there was something he could do...

Finally, Clan Des Obeaux has left Saturday’s Betfair Denman Chase to the 2018 Gold Cup 1-2, Native River and Might Bite – if indeed the latter horse can be considered a player for anything except an imminent hunter-chase career.

Owner Paul Barber is convinced that the dual King George winner, now “a great deal stronger”, will now stay the Gold Cup trip if the ground isn’t too soft. “Whether he'll get the trip on softish ground I don't know, I think he'll get it on good ground and he's got a fair bit of toe,” he told the Racing Post.

It’s the topography rather than the trip per se that bothers me for Clan Des Obeaux. Cheltenham’s left-handed lay-out, its undulations and final hill, combined with the questions three miles two and a half furlongs of the New Course asks about stamina, are all likely to add up to him being some way off his best. And that won’t be good enough.

You’d be tempted to run Presenting Percy in this rather than the Gold Cup, wouldn’t you? And I don’t just mean if the “you” in question is Davy Russell. I’ve seen @PaulJonesRacing has already made this argument and I agree with him.

The Gold Cup betting tells you this horse is one of a clutch who might win the Gold Cup if enough rivals with more obvious chances underperform. Were he to contest the Stayers’ Hurdle – on the related premise that Benie Des Dieux would be even more likely to contest the Mares’ Hurdle should Honeysuckle head to the Champion – he would be clear second favourite.

He’s not quoted by any bookmaker for the very good reason that, just like last year when his Festival prep was even over hurdles, he has not been entered. However, there is a supplementary stage on March 6, so it’s not out of the question that the 2017 Pertemps winner could yet be parachuted in. Not a variable you want to be worrying about if considering an each-way or without-the-favourite position on 10-11 favourite Paisley Park.

As it happens, Percy’s finishing effort on his past two starts would prevent me from actually parting with cash even if this outside scenario came true but I can see the argument.

Mares now dominate the Champion Hurdle market after Honeysuckle emulated Epatante by winning an open Grade One last Saturday and, having slipped Willie Mullins’ leash again, Rich Ricci characteristically failed to dismiss the possibility that Benie Des Dieux could be supplemented for the race.

It wasn’t an impressive PCI Irish Champion Hurdle victory. Stablemate Petit Mouchoir frequently outjumped Honeysuckle and, having been headed in the straight, came back for more when getting away from the final flight more swiftly. Having duelled from a long way out, they were both softened up for Darver Star’s late rally and the mare’s superiority had dried up to half a length by the line.

Clearly, you can knock the form. Darver Star was a 146-rated (now 152) second-season eight-year-old novice hurdler, last seen when beaten four lengths by Envoi Allen in the Royal Bond in early December. (Cue: an increased clamour for his conqueror to roll the Champion dice.)

Nine-year-old Petit Mouchoir was the stick used to beat the quality of the victories of Sharjah and Saldier earlier this season. And, unlike them of course, Honeysuckle was receiving 7lb from her rivals for the fact of her chromosomes.

Yet a steady early pace, wound up from the front by a hardy battler in good heart this season, requiring her to get racing sooner than ideal, against the deepest field she’s ever faced and at a track that might not suit her as well as Cheltenham, Honeysuckle still found a way to win. As she’s unbeaten, we still don’t know how good she is.

She was racing left-handed for the first time. I mention this because she jumped slightly big at the first and also caressed the brakes into the second prior to warming up. Yet she still slowed into the last, having worked hard to get past Petit Mouchoir, and gave him a second bite at the cherry. If she hurdled like that in the Champion, she’d be beaten – especially when you contrast her technique with Epatante’s fluidity.

However, in form terms the Champion Hurdle is relatively low-hanging fruit this year and potentially represents a lesser challenge than would Benie Des Dieux in the Close Brothers’ Mares’ Hurdle.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Honeysuckle’s owner Kenny Alexander opted to Go Big, despite his racing manager Peter Molony previously having stated “I'd say it's 95 per cent she'll go for the Mares' Hurdle”. In fact, I’d go as far as to say I expect Alexander to do it – why wouldn’t you live a little? – meaning that neat double Ruby Walsh ventured in last week’s Road To Cheltenham show would be very much in play.

Ricci can therefore expect the squeeze being applied after a typical response to Nick Luck’s question about whether he, too, might consider Going Big with Benie Des Dieux. His reply began with those fateful six words, guaranteed to bring them, in their long coats, running, through the cloisters of Closutton: “I haven’t spoken to Willie yet.”

“Would we supplement her for the Champion Hurdle?” Ricci continued. “I don’t know. I don’t know if she’ll be fast enough, but it’s something you’ll have to consider. I don’t want to get into anything about whether she will run there or whatever. We haven’t had a discussion about it, but just given how open the Champion Hurdle is, you would have to think about it, if she is a two-miler.

“She’s very good over a two-and-a-half and three (miles), but it reminds me a bit of Annie Power in the Stayers’ and that was a mistake. We should have gone for the Champion Hurdle. We’ll have to see, but it certainly has to be on the table.”

For what it’s worth, Benie has only raced once over two miles for Mullins, who entered four of her stable companions in the Champion and said her latest success made him think about the Stayers’ Hurdle. You can have 11/4 NRNB or 14/1 on ante-post terms for the shorter contest. Personally, I’m just going to enjoy imagining the conversations between here and there.

Returning to the Irish Champion Hurdle, I would expect both horses who filled the frame behind Honeysuckle to run in this Cheltenham event. Time is ticking on with Darver Star and trainer Gavin Cromwell knows how to spring a surprise in the race, following the 16/1 triumph of the ill-fated Espoir D’Allen last year. It’s here or the County Hurdle for Petit Mouchoir, who was third to Buveur D’Air three years ago and gave his more vaunted stablemate a proper fright here.

For a notoriously stuffy horse, fourth was a satisfactory return from 2017 Coral Cup winner Supasundae, who to date holds only this entry at Cheltenham after finishing a stamina-stretched second and seventh in the last two editions of the Stayers’ Hurdle. However, he looked past his best at all trips last season and is now 10 years of age. He appeared to blow up and hung left some way out on Saturday, but stuck on.

Matheson Hurdle winner Sharjah was the flop of the race, failing to meet the penultimate flight well and being caught flat-footed just as the de Bromhead pair got trapping up front. The response after that was minimal – and connections couldn’t even offer the ground as an excuse this time. Stablemate Aramon, who could also never get involved but built considerably on his seasonal return, beat him to fifth.

Their more-regarded stable companion Klassical Dream was withdrawn the night before the Irish Champion Hurdle after being found to be lame. He had not been declared with a hood, as his trainer had mooted following his abject defeat in the Matheson.

Missing this intended start is not good news for a gassy horse whose unruly behaviour and airy jumping make him a potential liability at Cheltenham. Its pomp and circumstance could see him worry away what chance he might have.

Over at Sandown that same day, International winner Call Me Lord couldn’t find it within himself to win trainer Nicky Henderson an eighth Contenders’ Hurdle, despite being returned to the scene of his peak past performances. Instead, Quel Destin was good enough to quell him by three lengths whilst in receipt of as many pounds.

The winner isn’t entered in the Champion Hurdle but nine-length third Eldorado Allen is – albeit not for much longer, you would anticipate. Either Quel Destin ran far above any past form or this was ordinary stuff.

Finally, trainer Hughie Morrison has warned that Not So Sleepy might sidestep Saturday’s Betfair Hurdle and head straight to Cheltenham. Apparently, the horse has got to school well to merit taking in Newbury as well. Slow news day.

Either Laurina hates fences or she is currently taking a mental sabbatical from being a racehorse. On the premise that connections conclude it’s the former, I’d say this is now her only conceivable Festival target – if, indeed, they subject her to Cheltenham at all. I fear it’s the latter, anyway.

You’ll recall she wasn’t the swiftest over the smaller obstacles but the extent of her under-the-bonnet ability saw her tackle last year’s Champion Hurdle. She appears scared of fences – so, in hindsight, the 2m4f start for the Grade One Scilly Isles Novices’ Chase, requiring the three Railway Fences to be jumped first and in quick succession, couldn’t have been a worse idea.

She lacked fluency at the first and negotiated the next two with increasing alarm. She warmed up after a fashion on the final circuit, albeit showing a tendency to jump left, but was already beaten long before the Pond fence three out. For the second time in a row, she was pulled up.

Perhaps she hasn’t recovered from breaking a blood vessel behind Notebook at Leopardstown over Christmas? Whatever, she is available at 6/1 NRNB for this event and I wouldn’t touch that with the proverbial.

Stablemate and fellow Jared Sullivan flagbearer Eglantine Du Seuil, who won the 2019 Dawn Run Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle 12 months after Laurina, distinctly showed more signs of life when making a big move round the outside and into the last hurdle in Leopardstown’s Ladbrokes Hurdle last Saturday before keeping on for fourth off a mark of 140. She’s got a good deal more to find, however.

The following day, last year’s Dawn Run fourth Black Tears cosily won the mares’ 2m2f handicap hurdle at the same track from a mark of 133. Ditto.

Finally, just to confirm a point that I should have noted when entries for this race were published three weeks ago: Dame De Compagnie was not entered and trainer Nicky Henderson stated in his Unibet blog last Saturday that she heads straight to the Coral Cup, having been raised 8lb for winning at Cheltenham in December.

Advised on 20/11/19: Altior at 14/1 with William Hill for the Ryanair [non-runner]

Advised on 17/12/19: Chacun Pour Soi at 4/1 with various firms for the Champion Chase

Advised on 17/12/19: Mister Fisher at 16/1 e/w with Bet365, William Hill or BetFred for the Marsh

Advised on 29/01/20: Santini at 13/2 for the Gold Cup with BetVictor or Unibet

Advised on 30/01/20: Fiddlerontheroof at 8/1 for the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle with various firms

Advised on 30/01/20: Ramses De Teillee at 33/1 e/w for the Albert Bartlett with Bet365

Advised on 28/11/19: Thyme Hill at 14/1 with various firms for the Albert Bartlett

Advised on 12/12/19: Carefully Selected at 20/1 with Skybet or BetVictor for the NH Chase

Advised on 30/01/20: Honeysuckle at 13/2 for the Champion Hurdle in a double with Benie Des Dieux at 4/5 with Unibet for the Mares’ Hurdle