Racing: Chicuelo worth the weight loss for McCoy

Cheltenham Open Meeting: A harsh diet gives champion a fine chance in today's feature but he faces a tough rival in tomorrow's top novice race

When Tony McCoy dreams at night the picture that comes into his mind is chicken skin and wings, each smothered in mayonnaise. It is his idea of gourmet heaven.

But then just about any food at all would be glorious for the champion jockey at the moment. McCoy has spent the last two weeks existing on virtually nothing except for a cuppa, the occasional Jaffa cake and vitamin pills. It was all par for the course, he tried to convince us at Cheltenham yesterday. No big deal.

However, when you are 5ft 11in and trying to get down to around 10st, dieting, no make that starving, is a very serious business indeed. McCoy was pretending yesterday but he knows this well. Part of his wasting regime is to drink cups of tea with up to six sugars (he believes this gets the heart beating more furiously) before getting into a bath almost too painful to the touch.

There are the times, when he has his back to the bathroom door and is looking at the steaming tub, that he breaks down in tears. So what is it that makes the man torture himself so? The answer, for this afternoon at least, is Chicuelo, the Ulsterman's mount in the main race at Cheltenham, the Thomas Pink Gold Cup.

The six-year-old is due to carry 10st 1lb and that is exactly what the burden will be as McCoy is proud of the fact that he has never carried a single pound of overweight in his entire career.

Chicuelo, though, is not an absurdly short price just because of his committed and talented jockey. The main reason is that his trainer is Martin Pipe, the outstanding practitioner of his age and an especially influential figure at this Cheltenham Open meeting.

In the last five years, Pipe, who has saddled four of the last six winners of the Thomas Pink or its equivalent, has sent out over 20 per cent of the winners at this meeting. He has taken nearly 40 per cent of the races in which he has had runners and, despite the short prices of so many of his representatives, is well in profit to level-stake backing.

Even so, there were contradictory messages from Pipe headquarters yesterday about Chicuelo, who showed decent form over fences in France but could not win a race in six attempts with Ian Williams last season. Not for the first time though, here we have an animal who looks a different proposition once he has been through the revolving door at Pond House.

Chicuelo has been favourite for this ever since his reappearance in July, when he sauntered away with an event at Market Rasen. He is now trading at perilously close to even money. "But why is it such a good thing?" Pipe asked yesterday. "People say it's because I'm training it. Well I also train Exit Swinger and Cyfor Malta and nobody thinks they're certainties. But, looking at it another way, I suppose if he had just come from France and run in this race he could be even shorter. He has just lost his way in the meantime.

"It's a terrific hike [16lb for the Market Rasen victory], but, all being well, he'll take all the beating."

While Chicuelo may be as near as we can get to that mythical beast, the certainty, there is plenty of each-way value lying around. This takes in the favourite's stablemate Exit Swinger, who has been third and second in the last two runnings of this race, as well as Foly Pleasant, the runner-up 12 months ago, and a stablemate of his at Henrietta Knight's West Lockinge Farm, Perfect Fellow.

Jim Culloty, the stable jockey, takes the mount on the latter, the winner of a contest at Cheltenham last month which both The Outback Way and Shooting Light collected on their way to success in this afternoon's race. "It was made easier for him when the horse [Philip Hobbs's Saragann] fell, but hopefully he's got good memories of Cheltenham now," Knight says. "He's not overly big, but he's a great tryer and a real enthusiast."

Foly Pleasant will be partnered by the 7lb claimer Robert Biddlecombe, the son of the trainer's husband, Terry. "Terry is hard on all the jockeys and gives them plenty of bollockings," Knight says, "but he's probably harder on Robert than anyone."

It should be Chicuelo (2.50) to win, but Foly Pleasant provides the real value for a place at up to 14-1. Not only is he proven at the course and in this race, but the weights also give him the beating of an each-way rival in Exit Swinger.

The same two trainers are deserving of scrutiny in the card's other valuable chase, the Intervet Trophy, in which Pipe once again wheels out the big battalions. If Shooting Light, the winner of the Thomas Pink on this day 12 months ago, was not enough, there is also Stormez, who swept up the Summer National at Uttoxeter.

The shape of the race though suggests the educated bet should be about another West Lockinge horse in Southern Star (nap 2.15), who goes well round here and has operated efficiently before in the early part of the season. "He is a dour stayer who has won around Cheltenham and needs left-handed tracks and good ground," Knight says. "Added to that, he is in very good form at the moment."