The Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham last month produced one of the finest finishes of the National Hunt season to date as the first three home crossed the line separated by a length and a quarter and there is every chance of a repeat at the same track on Saturday with five of the first six in the Paddy Power among the entries for the £100,000 Caspian Caviar Gold Cup.
There was less than seven lengths between Annacotty, the winner of the first major handicap chase of the season, and Art Mauresque, the sixth horse across the line. With Annacotty and Buywise, the half-length runner-up, now 5lb and 4lb higher in the weights respectively, the margins could be closer still this weekend and Rebecca Curtis’s Irish Cavalier, who was alongside Annacotty at the final fence last month, is the narrow favourite in the early betting at a top price of 6-1.
In all there are 18 horses left in Saturday’s feature event, with Sound Investment, third home in the Paddy Power, now set to carry top weight after Smad Place, the Hennessy Gold Cup winner, and Wishfull Thinking were both withdrawn at the five-day stage. Annacotty is top-priced at 10-1 to become the first horse since Exotic Dancer in 2006 to win the feature handicap at both the November and December meetings at Cheltenham while Buywise, who was characteristically sloppy at several fences in the Paddy Power before finishing strongly up the hill, is 8-1 to reverse the form.
There was scarcely a weekend last season when Paul Nicholls did not pick up a big Saturday prize but he has yet to find the same level of form and consistency in the major weekend events during the current campaign.
“Sound Investment [a 14-1 chance] will have top weight, which makes his task tougher,” Nicholls said on Monday. “The New course and the better ground will suit him more than the Old course [which staged the Paddy Power]. He has it all to do at the weights but … I think he will run tidy once again, particularly if the ground is not as soft as it was last time.
“Better ground will [also] suit Art Mauresque [10-1]. He still ran an absolutely blinding race in the Paddy Power. Nick [Scholfield] knows him well and will ride him on Saturday.”
Eleven horses have been entered for the Grade Two International Hurdle, including Nicky Henderson’s unbeaten Peace And Co, who took the Triumph Hurdle at last season’s Cheltenham Festival. He is joined among the possible runners by his stable companions Top Notch, the runner-up in the Grade One Fighting Fifth Hurdle, and Hargam, third home in the Triumph.
Peace And Co is top-priced at 8-1 to win the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham in March and is the only horse from outside the yard of Ireland’s champion trainer Willie Mullins currently quoted below 20-1. The four-year-old is 6-4 favourite to make a winning seasonal debut on Saturday, ahead of Paul Nicholls’s Old Guard, the winner of the Greatwood Hurdle at Cheltenham’s November meeting, who is next in the betting at 4-1 with Top Notch.
“Old Guard is going to run even though it is a big step up in class,” Nicholls said. “I want to let him take his chance and see where we are with him. Sam [Twiston-Davies] is going to ride him as Harry [Bentley, his jockey last time out] cannot claim in this race.”
Two more races on Saturday’s card, the JCB Triumph Hurdle Trial and the Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle, have been reopened after attracting only eight and six entries respectively.
The scheduled card at Hexham on Wednesday has been abandoned due to waterlogging.
