Silviniaco Conti primed for success on familiar terrain

Weekend preview

A £1m bonus initiative for winning this season’s Betfair Lancashire Chase, the King George VI Chase at Kempton and the Cheltenham Gold Cup has stumbled at the first fence with just the same old faces turning out for today’s first leg at Haydock, none of them with realistic prospects of going on to capture chasing’s “Triple Crown”.

The prize was reintroduced by Jockey Club Racecourses in tribute to the recently deceased Kauto Star, who actually managed the feat after winning the first of his four Lancashire Chases in 2006, but he was a young, boundless improver back then. Today’s five runners, on the other hand, are all fully exposed and we know, pretty much for certain, that such heroics are beyond them.

But while all the Polo mints in the world would not persuade Silviniaco Conti to dash up Prestbury Park’s final hill, his record away from Cheltenham is first class: six Grade One wins comprising two King Georges, two Betfred Bowls at Aintree and two victories in this contest.

Warmed up by a recent encouraging spin over hurdles at Kempton, Paul Nicholls’ grand campaigner is again the one to beat this afternoon, although Cue Card, successful in the 2013 renewal and back to something like his best after an operation to free a trapped epiglottis, will be no pushover.

“The flat track on soft ground is made for him,” said Nicholls. “And that run will have done him the world of good.”

If there were a chaser with the profile to win the million this winter it was surely Willie Mullins’ brilliant six-year-old Vautour, favourite for both the King George and the Gold Cup and actually over in England today, but for the Grade Two 1965 Chase at Ascot, which he should win without breaking sweat.

Owners Susannah and Rich Ricci may have been tempted by the riches, but instead they looked at the bigger picture and, at this stage, an easier race over a shorter trip fits the schedule better.

Vautour was truly spectacular when winning the JLT Chase at Cheltenham last March, but his jockey, Ruby Walsh, is mindful of a stamina issue regarding the Gold Cup, one which may not be resolved until Boxing Day.

“If you don’t win the King George, you’re probably not going to win the Gold Cup, so that will probably guide us,” he told Racing UK.

Shortly after Michelle Payne made Melbourne Cup history early this month, Lizzie Kelly came within an inch of becoming the first woman to ride the winner in a French Grade One contest under either code when her mount Aubusson was caught on the line in an Auteuil hurdle.

Kelly and Aubusson landed Haydock’s valuable Fixed Brush Hurdle 12 months ago and the claimer now teams up with the attractively handicapped Tea For Two for the same connections, with first-rate prospects on ground he relishes.

Lurking further down the weights, however, is Venetia Williams’ French import Yala Enki, another mud-lover and very much one to keep on the right side of after he won a small race at Exeter easily on his second English start.