Andrew Asquith starts his new ante-post column for the 2025 Cheltenham Festival and has a selection in the Champion Chase.
It wasn’t a clean sweep in the Grade 1s for Willie Mullins at the Dublin Racing Festival like it was last year, but he did take six of the eight top-level races, with Galopin des Champs recording a third win in the Irish Gold Cup a particular highlight. He is now a short-priced favourite to land another hat-trick in the Cheltenham version, which would also make Mullins the joint-leading trainer in the race with five wins.
Kopek des Bordes and Final Demand looked a couple of novices out of the top drawer in their respective races, particularly the former who is now a top-price 11/10 (with just two firms) for the Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.
It was a seventh straight win in the Brave Inca Novices’ Hurdle for Mullins and, in recent years, he has saddled Klassical Dream, Sir Gerhard, Appreciate It and Ballyburn to come out on top in the same race – and all of them went on to be successful at the Cheltenham Festival.
That bodes well for Kopek des Bordes, who is almost certainly going to be kept apart from Final Demand at Cheltenham, with his stablemate reportedly set to go for the intermediate novice (Baring Bingham) despite holding entries in all of the Grade 1 novice hurdles.
Kopek des Bordes’ performance last weekend made him the top-rated novice hurdler in training by Timeform (154P), the large ‘P’ highlighting he’s still open to significant improvement, and he is rightly a short-priced favourite for the opening race at the Festival. The timefigure he recorded was also excellent and, for the time being, it is practically impossible to pick holes in him – colleague Graham North has dissected both races, and much more, in more detail in his Watch And Learn column.
One race Mullins didn’t win last weekend was the Dublin Chase in which the Joseph O’Brien-trained Solness made all of the running to provide somewhat of a shock. El Fabiolo failed to complete for the second time in his last three runs and his jumping is really becoming a cause for concern, while 2024 Arkle winner Gaelic Warrior was just disappointing despite starting the 6/4 favourite. It would be unwise to rule out the latter completely given how impressive he was at the Festival last season, but he is still just a general 6/1 for the Champion Chase, which looks short enough on that outing.
Jonbon hardened at the head of the betting for the Champion Chase on the back of the Dublin Chase and, while he has done little wrong, looking better than ever this season, he is still a horse who I want to take on.
When looking through the ante-post markets for the Cheltenham Festival this morning the Champion Chase was a race which stood out to me to have a crack at and it is MARINE NATIONALE who I think looks attractive at 12/1.
I actually put him up for the Champion Chase in the ante-post section of the latest Timeform Horses To Follow book towards the end of last year when he was the same price and, though he hasn’t won so far this season, he has done little wrong.
He more or less matched his impressive chase debut form when runner-up to Quilixios on his return in a Grade 3 at Naas in November, but his jumping was a little rusty on that occasion and, on the whole, he shaped as if needing the run after nine months off following a truncated campaign.
Marine Nationale stepped up on that effort when third to Solness and Gaelic Warrior in the Grade 1 at Leopardstown over Christmas, beaten four and a half lengths, but looking sharper and leaving the impression he has even more to offer.
It is therefore encouraging that he stepped forward when runner-up last weekend, again beaten by Solness but deserving extra credit as he was the only horse to make a challenge to that rival from off the pace.
Indeed, Solness has shown marked improvement since being ridden more forcefully, but his overall record suggests he isn’t bombproof, and whether he can keep dictating Grade 1s in the manner he has the last twice remains up for question despite his latest performance being backed up by a high-class timefigure.
Marine Nationale, on the other hand, was having just his fifth start over fences, and the big move he made to close the gap on Solness after jumping the second-last seemingly took its toll in the closing stages. He emerged looking threatening jumping the last – he traded 1.19 in-running on Betfair – but was just unable to sustain that effort on the run-in.
Sean Flanagan has ridden Marine Nationale the last twice when beaten by Solness, but I’d imagine he is still getting to know the horse and whether he will give his old rival as much rope in front at Cheltenham I’m not sure. It is also much harder to deploy such tactics on the Old Course at Cheltenham and I’d be pretty confident he can reverse that form given his run-by-run progress this season.
Jonbon, a back-to-form Gaelic Warrior and a more fluent El Fabiolo will present sterner challenges, but I’m of the opinion that we are yet to see the best of Marine Nationale, and it is well worth remembering how impressive he was when winning the Sky Bet Supreme in 2023.
Preview posted at 1245 GMT on 05/02/25
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