3 minute read
Ahead of Saturday's big handicap chase at Wincanton, Ben Fearnley picks out a fancy at double-figure odds.
Don’t worry, I’ve checked for you: all 18 entered in this year’s Badger Ales Trophy are eligible to run. Last year’s renewal will forever be best remembered for the controversy sparked when the impressive winner The Young Master was subsequently disqualified after it transpired that, by virtue of having run just twice over fences before, he was not eligible to run.
In a way, The Young Master’s crime was that he fit the bill for your average Badger Ales ‘winner’ a little too well. Unexposed chasers rule the roost in this race: besides The Young Master, Standing Ovation was also a novice when he won in 2013, while earlier in the decade Meanus Dandy and The Minack were both second-season chasers. Only The Package bucks the trend, and he had been pretty lightly-raced in the seasons immediately before his win.
The winners named above should also tell you that a certain couple of locally-based trainers seem inclined to target the race: David Pipe was responsible for The Package and Standing Ovation, while Paul Nicholls (Meanus Dandy and The Minack) has had no fewer than seven winners of the race.
With no Pipe entrant this year, The Ould Lad is of obvious interest on what would be his first run for Paul Nicholls after leaving Tom George. With the greatest of respect to George, few if any are better than Nicholls at handling old-fashioned chasing types like The Ould Lad. It’s especially ominous, then, that The Ould Lad tops our adjusted ratings on what he achieved last season. He won at Warwick and Leicester at around this time and was second in a Grade 3 at Cheltenham before Christmas. It was a struggle after that for The Ould Lad, but the result is a reduced BHA mark just in time for his switch to the most powerful jumps yard in the country.
After The Ould Lad in the adjusted ratings is Cogry, who is another second-season chasers whose novice campaign tailed off a little. Admittedly, his struggles in the spring were more excusable in the face of some stiff tasks: he was a respectable sixth in the four-miler at the Festival and was still in the mix for a place in the Scottish National when he fell four out. Before that he’d won at Chepstow and Warwick, finishing second in a Grade 2 at Haydock in between. His profile isn’t as obviously eye-catching as The Ould Lad, hence the difference in price between the two in the initial markets. We don’t think that discrepancy is quite justified, so we’d be with the solid Cogry at the prices for the in-form Twiston-Davies yard.
Closely matched with Cogry on their meeting at Warwick in February is Rebecca Curtis’ Doing Fine, who was beaten a neck that day. He shaped encouragingly after five months off when third at Chepstow last month, staying on strongly in the closing stages and indicating that a return to a further would suit. He undoubtedly holds claims, though at the weights they’re no stronger than Cogry’s and all Doing Fine has on that rival to explain a five-point difference in price is that Chepstow run.
Others worth a mention include Theatrical Star, a doughty stayer ended 2014/15 better than ever and ran creditably at Cheltenham last month, and projected top-weight Carole’s Destrier, a stablemate of The Young Master who appears attractive on certain pieces of form and has a prominent-racing, sound-jumping style that plays very well at Wincanton.
This year’s Badger Ales Trophy looks well up to scratch, in terms of providing us with plenty of promising second-season chasers to parse. There doesn’t seem to be much between the likes of The Ould Lad, Doing Fine, Cogry and Carole’s Destrier, except for price. Cogry is significantly bigger than the others on the shortlist in the early betting and the recommendation is to move now to get him onside as he seeks to give Nigel Twiston-Davies a second win in the race after Captain Dibble in 1992.
Recommended bet:
Back Cogry @ 14/1 in the Badger Ales Trophy
