Key events
Kauto Star Novice Chase (1.20pm) betting
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Hermes Allen 6/4
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Il Est Francais 6/4
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Giovinco 9/2
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Marble Sands 16/1
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Tightenourbelts 25/1
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Kilbeg King 30/1
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Odds via BestofBets.com
Kauto Star Novice Chase (1.20pm) preview
Greg Wood
A cracking Grade One novice chase and a welcome hint that French jumping could be on an upward trajectory after a decade or more when most of their best prospects were immediately snapped up for six-figure sums and shipped off to Ireland. Il Est Francais, the winner of his first two starts over fences at Auteuil, is a fascinating contender from Noel George and Amanda Zetterholm’s yard near Chantilly, and would be the first French-trained winner at this meeting since 2002, when Guilliaume Macaire’s Jair Du Cochet won the same race. He is clearly a fine prospect Timeform’s assessment of his form to date gives him a fair bit to find with the favourite, Hermes Allen, however, and Paul Nicholls’s runner, who started off over fences with a win in a Grade Two event, is likely to take all the beating.
SELECTION: HERMES ALLEN
Ladbrokes Novice Handicap Chase (12.45pm) result
1 Blow Your Wad 10/3 f
2 Outlaw Peter 12/1
3 Es Perfecto 6/1
Ladbrokes Novice Handicap Chase (12.45pm)
And they’re off … Outlaw Peter has the early lead … Idalko Bihoue moves up to lead … Es Perfecto is at the back but it’s early days … Russian Ruler has been jumping to his right … and is not going well … Idalko Bihoue still at the front … Russian Ruler takes a more prominent position … Plenty in with a chance but Outlaw Peter heads for home … Blow Your Wad makes a challenge … and comes to take the lead at the last and goes on to win.
Ladbrokes Novice Handicap Chase (12.45pm) betting
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Russian Ruler 7/2
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Idalko Bihoue 4/1
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Blow Your Wad 9/2
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Es Perfecto 6/1
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General Medrano 13/2
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Off To A Fly 7/1
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Outlaw Peter 11/1
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Kotmask 16/1
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Odds via BestofBets.com
We’re seeing potentially the best hurdler of all-time today again with the return of Constitution Hill. There’s no doubt who was the greatest chaser … and his career ended 57 years ago today with injury when running in the King George.
Ladbrokes Novice Handicap Chase (12.45pm) preview
Greg Wood
A fiendishly tight-knit handicap to kick off the Kempton card, and a case can be made for all eight runners. Russian Ruler is the narrow favourite, perhaps as bookies are expecting plenty of multiples on Nicky Henderson’s runners over the afternoon. He made a satisfactory start over fences in a handicap at Newbury at the start of the month, and the first two home have both won since, but Russian Ruler has already had several wind ops and did not show quite as much as you might like for a market leader in a race like this. Blow Your Wad showed a lot of promise too on his chase debut in mid-November, but I’m going to row in with Idalko Bihoue, who was placed in Grade One company over hurdles and looked to have learned plenty, with further progress likely, when winning at Cheltenham in late October.
SELECTION: IDALKO BIHOUE
Hope you had a good Christmas and have blown off the cobwebs as we are quickly into the action. They’ve set off already at Sedgefield and Fontwell it’s non-stop action now till it goes dark at around 4pm. There are many fascinating plots today aside from the traditional big Christmas mystery of who will win the King George and one is definitely whether Shishkin will actually set off in the big race after he said “no thanks” and downed tools last time at Ascot. I’m grateful to David Johnson at Timeform who has crunched the numbers and informs me that 615 horses have refused to race on the Flat or over jumps in the UK and Ireland since 2010. Of those 107 refused again on their next start (that’s 17.4% interestingly).
The Shishkin backers don’t seem to have lost faith. A spokesperson from BestofBets.com gets in touch to point out: “Shishkin remains a crowd pleaser and is not far behind favourite Allaho and Bravemansgame in the betting in terms of volume traded . The odds of 3-1 also suggests that bookmakers don’t want to risk it as there’s always the worry for them that the very talented Shishkin will prove the doubters wrong today.”
Preamble
Greg Wood
Good morning from Kempton Park, where a boisterous post-Christmas crowd is assembling for one of the most traditional afternoons at the track in the racing calendar.
A select field of six, all but one of which will go to post with a very plausible chance, will contest the King George VI Chase at 2.30, with the winner joining a list that includes many – indeed, most – of the greatest names in jump racing over the last 60 years.
It was the scene of one of Arkle’s most memorable victories in 1965, and also his final race a year later (of which no film is known to exist, as the BBC did not send its cameras that year). It was the race which turned Desert Orchid into a household name in the mid-1980s, and has subsequently been won by outstanding chasers including Best Mate, One Man and, of course, the incomparable Kauto Star, successful five times in six years between 2006 and 2011.
The dominant trainer in this race over the last quarter of a century has been Paul Nicholls, who won his first King George with See More Business in 1997 and has been racing up subsequent wins at the rate of pretty much one over two years to the point where he now has an astonishing 13 wins in all. See More Business, Kauto Star, Silviniaco Conti and Clan Des Obeaux, the first four of his six individuals winners, all went on to record at least one more victory, and the final two – Frodon (2020) and Bravemansgame (2022) – are both in the field for today’s renewal.
Frodon and Bryony Frost, who missed out on a rapturous reception when winning at 25-1 behind closed doors three years ago, are 50-1 outsiders for today’s race, but Bravemansgame is vying for favouritism with Willie Mullins’s Allaho, with just a quarter of a point between the two horses at present at 9-4 and 2-1 respectively.
Add in the mercurial Shishkin, who has been backed in to around 7-2 as punters bank on him deciding to jump off with the field, plus two live each-way shots in The Real Whacker and Hewick, and a memorable race is in prospect.
Constitution Hill, the best jumper in training, will be strutting his stuff in the Christmas Hurdle at 1.55, while three outstanding novice chase prospects are in opposition in the Grade One Kauto Star Novice Chase at 1.20.
You can, as ever, follow all the action here on the blog as one of the most eagerly-anticipated cards of the year, and the action is underway at 12.45.
