|
||||||
Vincenzo will bid to keep Sam Thomas’ hot streak rolling when he lines up on Saturday. The seven-year-old took well to fences last term, striking at Windsor and Sandown before rounding off with a strong second in the Greatwood Gold Cup at Newbury. Now he returns for the first major handicap of the season, and his trainer sounds satisfied with where the horse sits ahead of his comeback.
“Touch wood he’s in a good place I think, I’m really happy with him. He’s due to run on Saturday,” said Thomas.
“He put in some great races last season and I’d rather find out where we are in a top race than an ordinary race.
“If he wins or runs well, we have those two-and-a-half mile (races) at Cheltenham every meeting near enough, so that would be the obvious thing to do with him.
“Hopefully he could end up being a three-miler in time as well, with the way he looked at Newbury.”
Last year’s winner Il Ridoto stands among the 15 declarations, looking to give Paul Nicholls three successive victories in the race after Stage Star and his own triumph 12 months ago. He aims to become the first dual winner since Bradbury Star in the 1990s, having shaped well on his return at Chepstow.
Jagwar adds further weight to the challenge, returning for Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero after two Cheltenham wins last season—including the Festival Plate—and this has long been his earmarked starting point.
Dan Skelton, firmly in the title hunt, holds three entries in Panic Attack, Riskintheground and Hoe Joly Smoke.
This year’s renewal carries the memory of the late Edward O’Grady, who trained the last Irish winner, Tranquil Sea, back in 2009, and the travelling team arrives strong-handed. Gavin Cromwell has Thecompanysergeant and The Other Mozzie; Henry de Bromhead has Coming Up Easy and Theatre Native; Paul Nolan keeps Conyers Hill in the mix.
Bad will have the chance to silence those who see him as nothing more than a Kempton specialist when he lines up on Saturday.
Ben Pauling’s striking grey has made quite an impression since arriving from France, racking up three wins at the Sunbury circuit. Yet his efforts elsewhere—narrow defeats at Ascot and Newbury—hint that there’s more to come beyond his beloved right-handed track.
His only previous spin around Cheltenham came in the 2023 Fred Winter, where he finished in mid-division, though Pauling is convinced the bare result doesn’t tell the full story.
“We’ll find out if he’s just a Kempton specialist or not. I think he’s a different horse to the one I trained a couple of years ago,” said Pauling.
“He ran very well in the Boodles (Fred Winter). I know he was nearly favourite and ended up being beaten 10 lengths, but he hit the front plenty soon enough that day.
“I had been hoping he wouldn’t hit the front until coming to the last, as he was a new French horse on an undulating track.
“Rachael (Blackmore) wouldn’t have given many a bad ride, but she’d just got off a certain horse called Honeysuckle who had just won her last race, so she was on cloud 89!
“She came in and said ‘I’m sorry, he was going so well I went to the front down the hill, but he got tired coming up it’, so I don’t think the track doesn’t suit him – but he does look very good around Kempton and they are very different tracks.
“We will find out, but he’s going there in very good order and he should be competitive.”
Es Perfecto for Alan King, Hunter Legend for Venetia Williams and Issar d’Airy for Gary and Josh Moore round out the line-up.
Paddy Power Gold Cup Handicap Chase (Grade 3)
£150,000 guaranteed, 4yo plus, 2m 4f 44y, Class 1
15 runners
Going: Good, Good to Soft in places
NO. FORM HORSE AGE WGT TRAINER JOCKEY
1 11311- Jagwar 6 12-0 Oliver Greenall & Josh Guerriero Jonjo O'Neill Jr
2 6171-0 The Other Mozzie 6 11-11 Gavin Cromwell Eoin Staples
3 11P5-1 Bad 6 11-11 Ben Pauling Ben Jones
4 32-596 Thecompanysergeant 8 11-10 Gavin Cromwell Keith Donoghue
5 117-41 Riskintheground 8 11-8 Dan Skelton Tristan Durrell
6 6807-2 Il Ridoto 8 11-8 Paul Nicholls Harry Cobden
7 0011-1 Coming Up Easy 7 11-8 Henry De Bromhead Darragh O'Keeffe
8 61212- Vincenzo 7 11-3 Sam Thomas Dylan Johnston
9 221-03 Theatre Native 7 11-1 Henry De Bromhead Sean Bowen
10 /3312- Panic Attack 9 11-1 Dan Skelton Harry Skelton
11 7162-2 Conyers Hill 7 11-1 Paul Nolan Sean O'Keeffe
12 16415- Es Perfecto 10 11-0 Alan King Tom Bellamy
13 151P-3 Hoe Joly Smoke 7 10-11 Dan Skelton Kielan Woods
14 21151- Hunter Legend 8 10-9 Venetia Williams Charlie Deutsch
15 2522-8 Issar d'Airy 7 10-7 Gary & Josh Moore Freddie Mitchell
