Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury

The Hennessy Gold Cup, a handicap chase over 3 1/4 miles at 16.05 CET, is not only the big betting race of the day, it is also generally regarded as the second best handicap chase of the season (with the sole exception of the Grand National) and today´s field of 18 satisfies the highest expectations. Today´s race revolves round top-weight Denman (Paul Nicholls/ Sam Thomas), clearly the class act in the field, past winner of the Gold Cup at Cheltenham - and runner-up this year- but, more importantly, twice winner of this race too, including under a huge weight a year ago. In fact he is an absolute Newbury specialist, having 5 of his 6 starts here. He has however been set an enormous task by the handicapper, conceding 18 lbs+ all round, and 26 lbs to most of the field. He is certain to start favourite and a victory would be very popular as well as being the handicap performance of the decade; however in our view he represents no value and we prefer to look elsewhere for the win ner.

The first place to look is in his own stable, as Nicholls saddles 4 more runners, including the two next in the weights - Neptune Collonges (Tony McCoy) and Taranis (Nick Scholfield), both of whom are coming off a long break. We fancy that The Tother One (Ryan Mahon), runner-up in the Charlie Hall, is possibly the likeliest of the Nicholls runners.

Nicky Henderson saddles two runners with stable jockey Barry Geraghty on Burton Point- first or second on his last 8 starts, but he is not only out of the handicap but will undoubtedly have to carry overweight, while the Queen´s Barbers Shop (Andrew Tinkler) has been very disappointing on his recent starts.

The Irish fancy Pandorama (Noel Meade/ Paul Carberry - back from injury), who has won 8 of his 9 starts and is very smart -but he has never run in a race like this. Big Fella Thanks (Ferdy Murphy/ Graham Lee) and Hey Big Spender (Colin Tizzard/ Aidan Coleman) are in our view more likely; there is little between them on their latest form, and the former would of course be a noteworthy winner, as he is owned by Harry Findlay, previously half-owner of Denman.

However our two main fancies are Madison du Berlais (David Pipe/ Tom Scudamore) and Weird Al (Ian Williams/ Paddy Brennan). The latter ran on really well when forcing a dead-heat last time with Little Josh, who has since run away with the Paddy Power, while the latter is also a past winner of this race (2008) and looks primed to run a huge race.

We would love to see Denman make history and win this race for the third time, but at the likely odds and at these weights, our 4 against the field are Madison du Berlais, Weird Al, Big Fella Thanks and The Tother One.