Ryanair Chase and World Hurdle at Cheltenham

It i still very cold at Cheltenham, but racing goes ahead today, and the ground is drying out a little. The only problem is that there are still frozen patches on the cross country course, and a special inspection is to be held for this race, scheduled for 18.15 CET, later on, otherwise it is hoped to run the event as the last race tomorrow. The main events today are the Ryanair Chase over 2 miles 5 furlongs at 15.40 and the World Hurdle at 16.20.

On the former event we strongly fancy First Lieutenant (Mouse Morris/ Davy Russell), who has been running with credit over longer distances but should be ideally suited by this trip. Cue Card (Colin and Joe Tizzard) is thre maoin threat; he won the bumper here is 2010 and was runner-up in the Arkle two years ago, and ran a good race when winning at Ascot last month. German-bred Ghizao represents the strong Paul Nicholls/ Ruby Walsh team, but is well held on form, and much more dangerous are the two past winners of this race Albertas Run (Jonjo O´Neill/ Tony McCoy) who won in 2010 and 2011, and Riverside Theatre (Nicky Henderson/ Barry Geraghty), a narrow winner last year from Albertas Run, these two are both coming off a long break but run their best races fresh, so now is the time for both of them. Albertas Run is by far the oldest horse in the race, but should by no means be underestimated. However First Lieuenant, although he has not won for a while, has to our mind the be st form in the race.

The World Hurdle is like Hamlet without the Prince, as Big Bucks, who has won it for the past 4 years and would havebeen a near certainty to win it again were he not sidelined through injury. His trainer Paul Nicholls now saddles Celestial Halo (Daryl Jacob) and ex-French Wonderful Charm (Ruby Walsh), but neither has shown their top form at this distance and we do not believe they can win. Willie Mullins and Nkicky Henderson, the leading traiensr at this meeting so far, also reach saddle two runners, and we expect Henderson´ s Oscar Whisky (Geraghty) to win. He was just beaten over this CD in January by Reve de Sivola (Nick Johnson/ Richard Johnson), who reopposes on the same terms, but the ground was very heavy that day, and on this better going we expect Oscar Whisky to take his revenge.