“He started out at Chaddesley Corbett point-to-point,” Dan Skelton said after winning the big novice chase here on Friday with North Hill Harvey. “It was unraceable conditions, over three miles and he was a four-year-old – and now here he is, winning two-mile chases. It shows you that they can start from all different walks.”
They can but, wherever they start, for most there is just one destination that matters. The trees on Cleeve Hill were still decked out in their autumn colours as National Hunt racing returned to its most celebrated venue but many thoughts were already turning towards the spring and the Festival meeting here in a little under five months’ time.
That dream is certainly still alive for North Hill Harvey, who had not jumped a fence in public before race but had enough finishing speed from the last to beat Sceau Royal, who finished sixth in the Champion Hurdle here in March, by a neck. Apart from Chaddesley Corbett Cheltenham is the only course at which he has registered a success in nine starts – he now has three wins at the Cotswolds track in all – and Skelton has also learned how to campaign the six-year-old with the Festival in mind.
“This horse’s form in the spring [when he was well beaten in the County Hurdle after a four-month break] wasn’t his fault; it was mine,” the trainer said. “The plan worked so well with Superb Story the year before, going from the Greatwood [Hurdle in November] to the County [which he won in March], that I did the same with this horse and he was completely the wrong horse to do it with.
“If I had my time again, I’d run him plenty more last year and I won’t make that mistake this year, so he’ll come back here for the November meeting. It’s a great start and fair play to the runner-up, he had to give us a penalty and I thought we were beat, to be honest, jumping the last, upsides a horse that ran in the Champion Hurdle. For Harvey to stick his nut down and win that fight was really encouraging.”
North Hill Harvey can still be backed at 33-1 for the Arkle Trophy, the second race at next year’s Festival, in a market headed by Petit Mouchoir, a dual Grade One winner over hurdles.
“It has to come into the reckoning, because he’s just beaten a horse that ran in the Champion Hurdle,” Skelton said, “and there will be a lot of winners out of the first four in that race. The next time he comes here, he’ll have a penalty [but] I think he’ll progress and he wasn’t at the limit of his travelling ability for 90% of the race.”
Martin Keighley, who was a Festival-winning trainer for several weeks in 2016 before Any Currency’s disqualification from the meeting’s cross-country event due to a failed drugs test, is also looking towards March with Brillare Momento, the winner of the opening novice hurdle.
The even-money favourite, who took a Listed hurdle at the track earlier in the year, had a straightforward task after a jumping error by Its All Guesswork at the second last when Gordon Elliott’s runner still looked to be going well.
“She loves it round here and she’s got a massive future,” Keighley said. “Obviously if she could keep improving, we’d be looking at the David Nicholson Mares’ race. She’d be the best in our yard.”
Bryony Frost, who won the Foxhunters’ at the Festival in March aboard Pacha Du Polder, took her record at Cheltenham to two wins from seven starts as Black Corton landed what was perhaps a slightly fortunate success in the card’s staying novice chase.
Bryan Cooper and Sizing Tennessee eased past Black Corton and into the lead on the run to the second-last but Cooper is not enjoying much luck in the early days of his association with the owner Alan Potts and his mount crumpled on landing after jumping the obstacle well enough. That left Black Corton and his jockey in a clear lead which they held to the line.
Frost gave up her amateur status to ride as a conditional in July attached to the stable of the former champion trainer Paul Nicholls, and has now ridden 15 winners this season, enough to put her in the top 20 in the jump jockeys’ championship.
“The team I’m riding for and the opportunities I’m getting, it’s the stuff of dreams,” Frost said. “You wouldn’t know what would have happened [without the fall of Sizing Tennessee] but we still had to jump the last and go up the hill and my horse is tough.”
Greg Wood’s tips for Saturday
Cheltenham
2.00 Robinsfirth 2.35 Bedrock 3.10 Double W’s 3.45 Stick To The Plan 4.20 Two Taffs 4.55 Calett Mad 5.30 Ainchea
Doncaster
1.45 Rebel Assault 2.20 Al Hajar 2.55 Lawless Secret 3.25 Verbal Dexterity (nap) 4.00 Lincoln (nb) 4.35 Sir Dancealot 5.10 Hajjam
Newbury
1.10 Birch Grove 1.40 Tathmeen 2.15 What About Carlo 2.50 Mythical Magic 3.20 Century Dream 3.55 Moonlight Bay 4.30 Dream Of Camelot 5.05 Take Two
Kelso
1.15 The Delray Munky 1.50 Some Reign 2.25 Give Me A Copper 3.00 As De Mee 3.35 Jet Master 4.05 Doktor Glaz 4.40 Buckled 5.15 Chapel Style
Wolverhampton
5.45 Nutini Miss Rosina 6.45 Barnaby Brook 7.15 Angel In The Snow 7.45 Big Time Maybe 8.15 Mraseel 8.45 Debonaire David 9.15 Daring Guest
