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GREG WOOD
Eleven months ago, Timeform described Master Oats as the "outstanding" winner of a "fabulous" Gold Cup, after he came home 15 lengths clear of his field at Cheltenham. Two days ago, the same experts rated him only the second-best chaser (behind Monsieur Le Cure) in the Hennessy Gold Cup at Leopardstown. After he had finished second to Imperial Call, the Tote pushed him out to 7-1 to repeat last year's victory at the Festival in four weeks' time.
At first sight, it is the record of a champion in decline, but yesterday the backlash began against any notion that Master Oats's powers are diminished. Both in the Tote's credit betting offices, where he was supported back down to 11-2, and at Kim Bailey's yard in Lambourn, the mood was one of optimism.
"I was very happy, I thought he ran very well and it was a good horse that beat us," Bailey said, reflecting the mood among bookmakers that has seen Imperial Call's Gold Cup odds plunge as low as 5-1.
"You've got to remember that Master Oats is a three-and-a-half mile horse, not a three-miler. He's a Welsh National winner and a Greenall Whitley winner, and Sunday's race would be his best over three. I never said he was a fast horse."
The extra two-and-a-half furlongs of the Gold Cup should bring improvement from Master Oats, but Bailey believes that very soft ground, similar to that on which he was successful last season, is just as important.
On Sunday's evidence, though, Imperial Call will give both Master Oats and One Man, the Gold Cup favourite, plenty to do at the Festival. Fergus Sutherland, his trainer, has arrived in the consciousness of British backers with a speed which even a pop star's publicist would envy, and his chaser - his first runner at the Festival - will have plenty of supporters on both side of the Irish Sea.
"He came out of it very well," Ann Sutherland, the trainer's wife, said yesterday. "He had a nice couple of hours in a field today, eating and rolling around, and he didn't really have a very hard race. Even when he made that blunder at the last, he scooted away again."
Like One Man, Imperial Call is just seven years of age and the pair are now at the forefront of an exciting new generation of chasers. "It's throwing him in at the deep end, but I think if it's the same sort of ground as yesterday [soft to yielding] he'll give them all something to do," Mrs Sutherland said. "I can't say that he's going to beat One Man but it would be nice if he did." Not least for anyone who managed to get the fancy prices available before Sunday's race.
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