The Conditional, runner-up in the Ladbrokes Trophy at Newbury last season before winning the Ultima Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, is the new ante-post favourite for this year’s running of the race after Paul Nicholls was forced to rule out Topofthegame, the early 5-1 favourite, for the second season running on Monday.
Topofthegame was an impressive winner of the RSA Chase in March 2019 but has not been seen on a course since finishing second in the Mildmay Novice Chase at Aintree a few weeks later. He sustained a leg injury while being prepared for a return at Newbury last November and the same injury will keep him out until next autumn.
“The warning lights have been flashing for the last couple of weeks,” Nicholls said on Monday. “I was not happy with him last week and we had the vet scan him, and although there is no tear he just needs more time to recover, so we will leave him for the rest of the season and get him back for next season.
“He had the tendon injury last season and he is still not strong enough to do full training. If we had carried on he would have broken down but as we have stopped there is a good chance we will get him back for next season.”
In Topofthegame’s absence, it is now 10-1 the field for one of the biggest betting races of the season, with The Conditional heading the market alongside Harriet Graham’s Aye Right, with Vinndication (Kim Bailey) and Copperhead (Colin Tizzard) close behind on 12-1.
The Conditional is 10lb higher in the weights than he was when chasing home De Rasher Counter 12 months ago but David Bridgwater believes he still has the time and scope to find the necessary improvement and more.
“He’s only a young horse and not over-raced, so hopefully over the next year or so he should have more improvement in him,” he said. “We were umming and ah-ing over what to go in [at Cheltenham] but we ended up picking the right race [from the Ultimate and the Grade One RSA Chase].
“I think if we’d run him again somewhere after Cheltenham, the way he was, I’m pretty sure he would have won again, he was in superb form.”
The Ladbrokes Trophy and Saturday’s Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham are the biggest betting races scheduled for the latest national lockdown, when the closure of betting shops is expected to cost the sport at least £10m in revenue.
Bookmakers have put at least a small dent in the deficit, though, by agreeing to increase their media rights payments for online streaming of races until 2 December.
Tuesday’s best bets
Jared Sullivan’s decision to switch a dozen horses from Willie Mullins to the Paul Nicholls stable over the summer has thus far been rewarded with a single winner from eight starts, but perhaps the best long-term prospect in the consignment makes her debut for the yard at Hereford and Dolcita (3.07) will be a very short price to carry Sullivan’s familiar red colours to victory against just two opponents.
Huntingdon
12.15 Marada
12.45 Precious Cargo
1.15 Somekindofstar
1.45 Constancio
2.15 Nightline (nb)
2.45 Akkapenko
3.15 Dollnamix
3.50 Kiss My Face
Hereford
12.37 Loughan
1.07 Trumps Benefit
1.37 Mick Mona
2.07 Garde La Victoire
2.37 William Henry
3.07 Dolcita
3.37 Knight Commander (nap)
4.12 To Fly Free
Lingfield Park
12.53 Restandbethankful
1.23 Big Bresil
1.53 Hang Tough
2.23 Imphal
2.53 Sky Full Of Stars
3.23 Getaround
3.58 Desque De L’Isle
Newcastle
2.50 Bobba Tee
3.20 King Of The South
3.55 George Ridsdale
4.25 Movin Time
4.55 Turandot
5.25 Al Ozzdi
5.55 Pockley
6.25 Rogue Tide
Docita was no match for her (then) stable companion Concertista in the Mares’ Novice Hurdle at Cheltenham in March, but she had the remainder of the field – including Getaway Totherock, her only significant opponent – strung out behind her and goes into the new campaign as one of the brightest second-season hurdling prospects around.
At 1-4, though, she is one to watch with an eye on next year’s Festival, and there’s a much better potential return from Knight Commander (3.37) in the handicap hurdle half an hour later. Nothing went right for Sheila Lewis’s gelding at Taunton last time – he lost a lot of ground at the start and then unseated his rider at the fifth – but he had been in excellent form prior to that and the excellent Jack Tudor takes over in the saddle today.
Like Dolcita, William Henry (2.37) is also making his debut for a new yard, having switched to Sam Thomas from Nicky Henderson, and should be good enough to break his duck over fences.
Nightline (2.15) makes his first start in a veterans’ event at Huntingdon and showed enough last time to suggest that it will be a winning one, while Sky Full Of Stars (2.53) and Al Ozzdi (5.25) are the picks on the cards at Lingfield and Newcastle, respectively.
