Racing / Cheltenham Featival: Jodami to hit double standard: The reigning champion steeplechaser can break a modern trend by achieving a second Gold Cup triumph

THESE DAYS they call the Gold Cup the race that leaves an invisible scar. For over 20 years, no winner of National Hunt racing's most prestigious event has been able to repeat their triumph and there are those who believe the punishing venture at the foot of Cleeve Hill leaves an indelible mark.

But it may be that the expectancy is just too much. Each Gold Cup winner appears a towering performer, but the route to Cheltenham is a tortuous one. In the teasing exercise of training thoroughbreds it is often forgotten that a single slip can be as costly as when juggling with grenades.

Mark Pitman knows what it is to be a one-time winner. He partnered Garrison Savannah to success three years ago, and he believes it may be unrealistic to expect regular shows of brilliance at the Festival.

'To get a horse to peak for one championship race is tough enough, but to do it over several years is very difficult,' he says. 'This is the race of the year for chasers, you've got all the best horses making it a very competitive event and you've got to be at your very best.

'When you're running at this level you don't have that many years at the top. To do it once is brilliant and any more than that you just dream about.'

This then may be dispiriting stuff for those who believe Jodami, the victor 12 months ago, simply has to get up, stretch, and make his way to the course for a little run round this afternoon. If the huge gelding placed himself among the best chasers of recent years last season, it seems he must now show further fortitude to graduate into the pantheon of dual Gold Cup winners, a building which has admitted just Cottage Rake, Arkle and L'Escargot since the Second World War.

The equine obstacles Jodami has to overcome are headed by The Fellow and Docklands Express. The former has twice been short-headed in the Gold Cup and continues to prove that he is a stern beast to beat.

Although well beaten here last year, his recent third to Tuesday's winner Antonin in the Racing Post Chase at Kempton suggests his name cannot yet be scored out. Just ahead of him in that race was Docklands Express, a veteran who has had his lightest campaign for many seasons and who juts out as the best each-way prospect for today's contest.

Jodami's problems, however, appear more statistical than equine. But those behind the horse believe he can break the trend as he enjoyed perhaps the least stressful run of any recent Gold Cup winner when he swept past Rushing Wild a year ago.

'When he won the ground wasn't testing and he went to the last on the bridle, so you couldn't say we had got to the bottom of him,' Mark Dwyer, the nine-year-old's jockey, says. 'There is some foundation in the invisible scar theory, but you can only go on the horse's condition. And for him it's been a better second half of the season than it was the first. His preparation has gone well.'

There are statistical possibilities here too for Dwyer. If he succeeds, the man who steered home the 1985 winner, Forgive 'N' Forget, becomes only the third jockey of recent times (following his Irish countrymen Pat Taaffe, Arkle's rider, and Tommy Carberry) to win three Gold Cups. The winner of the Champion Hurdle on Flakey Dove on Tuesday is also attempting to become the first to do the big-race double since Fred Winter on Eborneezer and Saffron Tartan in 1961.

Peter Beaumont, Jodami's trainer, believes Dwyer will succeed and is not perturbed by the history book. 'It's time someone broke the run,' he says. 'The horse has done a lot better since he won it than some others have. You have to say he's in with a favourite's chance.'

For a man not given to casual outbursts this is powerful material and it could be that Jodami (3.30) is about to enter hallowed territory.

Elsewhere, this may be a card to warm Jim Old, who proved his stable was in good from by supplying the Champion Hurdle fourth, Mole Board. The Wiltshire trainer has good prospects with both Collier Bay (2.15) in the Triumph Hurdle and his Stayers' Hurdle representative, SIMPSON (nap 2.50).

The ones to follow at rewarding odds appear to be Lackendara (4.40) and Riva (next best 5.50), who should make up for an unfortunate second in the Imperial Cup at Sandown on Saturday.

Shorter odds will be available about the Grand National favourite, Double Silk (4.05), who has frightened away much of the opposition in the Foxhunters' Chase, and Dubacilla (5.15), who may prove that she would have been an influential combatant if sent into play for the Gold Cup.

(Photograph omitted)