3.10pm Menorah impresses in Greatwood
Chris Cook: Menorah gave Philip Hobbs his third success in the Greatwood Handicap Hurdle, following Rooster Booster and Detroit City. The first of those went on to win the Champion Hurdle, while the second started favourite in the Champion but flopped. Menorah will now be aimed at the Champion and is available at 12-1.
Hobbs expressed caution about whether he could be good enough, noting that he would have to improve a fair bit from today's rating. But the winning jockey, Richard Johnson, was rather more enthusiastic, saying he and Hobbs had both thought Menorah could be championship material after he won at the Festival here in March.
2.15pm Williams "stunned" by Gauvain win
Chris Cook: Nick Williams professed himself "stunned" by Gauvain's convincing success in the Sinbad Testimonial, after which the horse is as low as 14-1 for the Champion Chase, though you can still get 25s. Formerly trained by Charlie Mann, the horse had been off with a tendon problem and had not raced for 576 days but finished strongly to hold off Forpadydeplasterer.
The winning jockey, Daryl Jacob, got off and told Williams: "I have to take my hat off. You're certainly the best trainer I've ridden for."
1.35pm Ghizao may go for Arkle rather than Celestial Halo
Chris Cook: After Ghizao was a taking winner of the opening novice chase at Cheltenham, his trainer Paul Nicholls indicated that the horse would be trained for the Arkle Trophy at the Cheltenham Festival, for which he is the new favourite at 12-1 with Hill's.
Nicholls pointed out that Andy Stewart, owner of Celestial Halo, is also a part-owner of Ghizao and he hopes that he can now persuade Stewart to let him step Celestial Halo up in trip. Celestial Halo will be schooled this week for the first time since he fell on his fencing debut at Exeter and Nicholls will then look for his next target.
11.40am Cheltenham's going eases
Chris Cook: Despite a dry forecast last night, the going here at Cheltenham has eased to good to soft, soft in places. It was good in places yesterday, officially, though jockeys reported that conditions were fairly testing.
The Irish are still looking for their first winner at the Paddy Power meeting. Nicky Henderson and Alan King have had two winners each and Henderson tops the trainers' table by dint of having had a couple of seconds as well.
Dougie Costello has been the only rider to get two winners so far.
Today's best bets, by Greg Wood
Cheltenham's management has been so successful in promoting its Festival meeting in recent years that it is not just the four days in March that dominate the National Hunt season, but the racecourse itself. Every card at Prestbury Park – and there are not that many – is a trials meeting too, with races like the Paddy Power Handicap Chase, a useful steer towards the Ryanair Chase, and today's Greatwood Handicap Hurdle, often an early pointer to the Champion Hurdle itself.
Flat handicappers sometimes improve into Group-class horses, as Dangerous Midge, beaten in the Ebor but successful in the Breeders' Cup Turf, proved only last week. But it is a much more accepted part of National Hunt racing, and today's renewal of the Greatwood could hardly be any stronger in terms of top novices from last year starting out on a possible run towards the timber championship.
Menorah and Get Me Out Of Here, first and second in last year's Supreme Novice Hurdle, while General Miller, a Grade Two winner at Aintree in April, and Sanctuaire, the Fred Winter winner at the Festival the previous month, also line up. In all, just four of the 18-strong field are more than five years old.
It is possible that this will be the most informative two-mile hurdles this side of Christmas, and as a result is really a race to watch as a whole without focusing in too squarely on the one you have backed. The most likely winners are Sanctuaire (2.20) and Get Me Out Of Here, who had an embarrassingly gentle reintroduction at Ascot last month, with narrow preference for the former as he looks to have more scope for progress than his six-year-old opponent.
Loosen My Load (1.10) was a decent hurdler but has looked a natural over fences in three starts as a novice and should stretch his run to four in the Independent Newspaper Novice Chase that opens the card. Tataniano (1.45), the winner of the same race 12 months ago, had just two more starts afterwards, ending the season as an impressive Grade One winner at Aintree, and can beat Forpadydeplasterer, the 2009 Arkle winner, in the Sinbad Testimonial Chase.
Grands Crus (2.55), who was four lengths behind Sanctuaire at Taunton in February when giving him 14lb, is an obvious bet in the Paddy Power Intermediate Handicap Hurdle.
