Victor Chandler Chase at Ascot

A very strong card Ascot today is headed by the Grade One Victor Chandler Chase over 2 miles 1 furlong at 16.10 CET. 8 runners and some of the top two milers engaged, although none of them are quite as good as Master Minded, winner of the last 2 editions. His trainer Paul Nicholls now saddles Al Ferof (Ruby Walsh), who has won his last 5 races, two of them over fences, and obviously he is one of the favourites.

We are not totally convinced and definitely prefer Finian´s Rainbow (Nicky Henderson/ Barry Geraghty), whose second place in the Arkle was his only defeat so far over fences and he has a career record of 8 wins from 11 races in N.H. events; despite a bad mistake he won last time at Kempton from Wishfull Thinking (Philip Hobbs/ Richard Johnson) and Oiseau de Nuit (Colin and Joe Tizzard) and can beat them again on the same terms. Somersby (Henrietta Knight/ David Elsworth) was runner-up here a year ago and if he could reproduce that form would have a great chance, but he is a puzzling performer and this distance is probably not ideal. German-bred Gauvain (Nick Williams/ Noel Fehily) beat Somersby easily enough at Huntingdon a month ago, but is not always in the same mood. The Irish hope Forpadydeplasterer is very consistent bur very rarely wins; he was pulled up in the King George last year- over clearly the wrong distance- but has otherwise been placed in all his races for alm ost 4 years. If you can bet place only, he is the obvious candidate, but for win purposes Finian´s Rainbow, the only runner who might well prove to be a champion, has to be the selection.

The Grade Two mares hurdle over 3 miles at 15.05 can go to Kentford Grey Lady (Emma Lavelle/ Jack Doyle), who beat Violin Davis (Nicholls/ Walsh) and Cloudy Spirit (Reg Hollinshead/ Paul Moloney) in a similar race at the Kempton Christmas meeting. She is 11 lbs worse off today but won with such authority that we expect the same result.

The 3 handicaps look extremely difficult. We hope to see German-bred Oldrik (Hobbs/ Johnson) cpmplete a hat-trick in the novice chase at 14.00, although this is undoubtedly a much tougher race than the two Taunton events he has won. Johnson and Hobbs also have a good chance with Pateese in the limited handicap hurdle at 15.35, but we slightly prefer Ciceron (Venetia Williams/ Sam Thomas), who won nicely at Sandown last time.
The valuable handicap chase over 2 3/4 miles at 16.45 is the toughest race of all, and any of the 14 runners could win. Our 3 against the field are Zaynar (Nick Williams/ James Reveley), Noland (Nicholls/ Walsh) and Tatenen (Richard Rowe/ Andrew Thornton); the last-named won this last year and although his later performances were not so hot, he could well come back to form today.