When six of the 18 runners in a handicap chase make it across the line, up front is generally the best place to be. So it proved here on Saturday as Baron Alco and Jamie Moore made all the running to win a BetVictor Gold Cup that was strewn with incident from the first fence to the last.
Four horses fell, two more were brought down and four unseated their riders over the course of two-and-a-half miles, but the drama passed Baron Alco by as he jumped quickly and accurately at the head of the field. Frodon, under top weight, kept him company for much of the way but his burden started to tell on the turn for home and Baron Alco stayed on strongly close home to register a comfortable success.
Baron Alco missed last season after suffering an injury when second in a valuable race at the Festival here in March and it was a fine achievement by Gary Moore, his trainer, to nurse him back to his best for one of the most competitive handicaps of the season.
“They are made for each other,” Moore said of his son and Baron Alco. “Jumping is what won him the race. They are both very bold and they just kept out of the way.”
Baron Alco could return to Cheltenham for the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup next month, while Frodon, who ran a fine race under his big weight, is around 20-1 for the Grade One Ryanair Chase next March.
Coneygree, who won the Cheltenham Gold Cup as a novice in 2015, made a promising return to action in the card’s three-and-a-half mile handicap chase, leading for much of the way before staying on for third behind Rock The Kasbah.
This run was a major improvement on Coneygree’s two starts last season – he was pulled up in both – and the 11-year-old seems to have benefited from wind surgery over the summer.
“He did what he does best,” Sara Bradstock, assistant trainer to her husband, Mark, said. “Look at the way he stayed on for third when he got tired, that’s just him.
“He’s just incredible, he makes me cry. He’s a proper competitor and he wants to be out there beating people. He had every right to get a tiny bit tired, but the engine is still there.”
Coneygree has been such a fragile horse in recent seasons that it is too early to make firm plans, but the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day, for which he is priced at 50-1, remains a possibility if Coneygree stays sound.
Cheltenham
1.15 Sliding Doors 1.50 Dynamite
Dollars (nb) 2.25 Brain Power 3.00 Vado Forte (nap)
3.30 Colonel Custard 4.00 Master Debonair
Fontwell
12.25 Silver Sea 12.55 Moabit
1.30 Walt 2.05 Tazka 2.40 Potters Approach
3.15 Sky Full Of Stars 3.50 Turban
