“He’s like a grasshopper,” Sara Bradstock said here on Monday, as Coneygree, the 2015 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, munched on one of her neighbour’s rose bushes during a walk around the village. “He has exceptionally long back legs. Those are his pistons, and they are his secret and his fragility. If you watch the replay of him coming up the Cheltenham hill, his hocks were coming past his knees, and the strain is enormous.”
The strain is considerable for Bradstock too, as she and her husband Mark, Coneygree’s trainer, prepare for his return to action in Saturday’s Betfair Chase at Haydock. There are only 15 horses in their Oxfordshire stable and it felt like a victory from the sport’s more Corinthian past when Coneygree crossed the line at Cheltenham, but they have since lost a season from what promised to be the nine-year-old’s prime.
Coneygree has run only once since becoming the first novice to win the Gold Cup for 41 years, beating two rivals with ease at odds of 1-4 at Sandown in early November 2015. He was ruled out of the remainder of the 2015-16 campaign in mid-December, and will now be pitched straight into Grade One company as the Bradstocks try to pick up where they left off last year.
“It’s not like when he first started going novice chasing,” Mark Bradstock said. “We’ve got to go straight in at the deep end, and having had over a year off it’s going to be quite an ask for him, but we’re looking forward to it.
“He’s done plenty of work and had a very good preparation. One would like to have been able to gallop more on grass but apart from that I think he’s in great form. They find the all-weather [gallops] a lot easier than the grass, which was part of the reason for going to Haydock [for a racecourse gallop] to work him. It’s the start of the season for him, it’s wonderful to see him back and hopefully we can build and build and build.”
Nico de Boinville, who has ridden Coneygree in four of his five starts over fences, will be missing this weekend after injuring an arm at Cheltenham two days ago. Richard Johnson, who was in the saddle when Coneygree ran away with the Denman Chase at Newbury in February 2015, is the obvious alternative, but he could be required at Ascot and Bradstock would also like Coneygree’s rider to school the horse beforehand.
“Richard Johnson will be the man to do it if he’s not required at Ascot,” Bradstock said. “Aidan Coleman would be the next option after that and if he can’t take the ride, we will be scratching our heads. Hopefully after Saturday we will go to the King George [at Kempton Park on Boxing Day], then the Denman and the Gold Cup.”
The Lexus Chase at Leopardstown remains a possible alternative to the King George for Coneygree, but victory on Saturday would all but confirm his presence at Kempton as it would take him one step along the route to the “Jumps Triple Crown” created by Jockey Club Racecourses, which offers a £1m bonus for a horse that completes the treble of the Betfair Chase, the King George and the Gold Cup.
“It’s nothing to be sniffed at, is it?” Bradstock said. “And just say you happened to win on Saturday and then win the Gold Cup, you’d look a bit of a dick [if you hadn’t run at Kempton], wouldn’t you?”
The opposition to Coneygree at Haydock is likely to include Cue Card, who took the first two legs of the Triple Crown last season but then fell three out in the Gold Cup just as he was beginning to launch a significant challenge. Irish Cavalier, who beat Cue Card in the Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby last time out, is also a probable runner, though he will be 4lb worse off with Cue Card, having beaten him by three-and-a-quarter lengths.
The betting favours the race-fit Cue Card on Saturday and he is top-priced at 15-8 with the sponsor to win his third Betfair Chase, while Coneygree can be backed at 9-4. Silviniaco Conti, successful in 2012 and 2014, is an 8-1 chance while Seeyouatmidnight, third home in last year’s Scottish National, is a 10-1 shot along with Irish Cavalier.
