Cheltenham Festival Day 2: Festival Wednesday
Cheltenham Festival Day 2: Festival Wednesday
Transcript
00:00 Yeah, moving on to day two, Festival Wednesday, of course, the feature race is the Queen Mother
00:05 Champion Chase. Now last year's winner, El Fabiolio, looks set to retain its title. It
00:13 has quite short odds at the moment and it should beat its rival, John Bond's, but is
00:19 that a bit of a two-horse race or are there any other ones?
00:24 It almost feels a bit similar to the Champion Hurdle, really, in the sense that El Fabiolo
00:27 just sticks out like a sore thumb. Again, it's top rated. Was it five pounds higher
00:31 than its rivals? It's got a long strung of wins together. The last time it was beaten
00:35 was by John Bond, but it's obviously improved since then. Obviously, you've got bigger obstacles
00:40 to contend with in the Champion Chase. It's not always as straightforward as that in horse
00:43 racing where the bigger the fences, the more fallers you get, but logically, you would
00:47 have a bit more worry about going over bigger fences, but this is a very good jumper, El
00:51 Fabiolo, and yeah, I wouldn't really want to go against it, to be honest. It's a slightly
00:54 better price than the Stateman as well. It's around about eight to 15 and it might drift
00:58 a bit on the day, so it's not quite evens and doubling your money, but it's not long
01:02 odds on like Stateman is, is it really? I fully expect El Fabiolo will win, probably.
01:07 John Bond's obviously a danger. Edward Stone's a very solid horse, around about eight, so
01:11 I could see that being a good each way bet, but you look at Wednesday and I just wonder
01:15 if Wednesday will be the day when all the bankers go in, really. El Fabiolo, I'd be
01:18 pretty confident that would win, to be honest, the Champion Chase because of what I just
01:21 said about its form. Ballyburn as well is around about four to seven for Willie Mullins.
01:25 He's got a horse also called Factophile running, which is even money. That's a lovely horse
01:30 for the future and just a lovely horse for now, really, around about evens. So you've
01:34 got three there, eight to 15, four to seven and evens that are all quite short. If you
01:38 put those three together in a treble or an accumulator as such, then obviously the odds
01:42 soon add up. So yeah, I think that'll probably do the business, that one, Daniel. I'd probably
01:46 almost be more confident about that than Stateman, really, which is a funny thing to say given
01:50 the prices, but that maybe shows that's possibly slightly better value. Obviously, people want
01:55 bigger priced ones and whatnot. I get that. There's a horse called Doddy the Great of
01:59 Henderson's in the Coral Cup, eight to one. That could probably run well. But again, Willie
02:03 Mullins has got one of the leading contenders in that that will take an awful lot of beating,
02:07 Sam Ajesti, which you could well see that winning as well. Like I say, we're only on
02:11 day two here and we're already going for about seven or eight really strong Willie Mullins
02:15 fancies. So yeah, I think Wednesday will be favourites day and I think El Fabiolo probably
02:19 we'll do the business like you say.