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Gold Cup Betting: Searching for an alternative to Kauto and Denman? Read on...

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The Assistant has found a big-priced alternative to the big two (aren't they all?), the only problem is a £22,500 supplementary fee

Trends and the Gold Cup

The Editor-in-Chief is back on my case again. He wants me to write something original about the Gold Cup. Apparently, the pages of betting.betfair are chockful of Gold Cup opinion, but it all centres around Kauto Star and Denman, barely mentioning another participant. "Surely there must be another angle?" his latest missive demanded. Mmm, okay boss, I'll see what I can do.

Original, let's see...

I've got two problems here. First, I don't really do original.

Second, the betting in the race tells us the main protagonists have a combined 80 per cent chance of winning. The opposing 20 per cent, rather than representing genuine opposition that might trouble the front two at their best, is composed mainly of scenarios where both of them fail to perform on the day. When you have two competitors so dominant, how can you write about anything else?

It's a bit like a journalist going off to write about Jurgen Straub in the run-up to Ovett and Coe's clash at the Moscow Olympics. In any other era he would have been an athlete deserving of coverage, but at the time he deserved nothing but a race number and a place on the track. To preview his chances would have been an academic exercise of journalistic balance and nothing more.

But hey, my third pair of work-boots of the year have just disintegrated and this column is my only means of paying for the next pair, so I've done some digging around and come up with an alternative to the Kauto-Denman alliance for you.

If his owners decide to supplement him for the race, Afistfullofdollars could trouble the market leaders in the Gold Cup. Admittedly, his bare form is over 20 pounds below that achieved by the favourites (rearrange the following: straws clutching at), but the manner of his last win at Fairyhouse, where he was taken on a long way from home and won easily, suggests there is a lot more to come from the horse.

In fact, one reading of the form of that race - his beating of Snowy Morning by nine and a half lengths when in receipt of five pounds - suggests he doesn't have a lot to find with Denman, who beat the same horse by ten lengths off level weights in last year's Royal and SunAlliance Chase.

Furthermore, the Gold Cup would only be his fifth run over fences, so it is reasonable to expect more improvement, especially when pitted against a top field for the first time.

Afistfullofdollars has been backed in Betfair's ante-post market at the ceiling price of [1000.0] and whoever holds all or part of the £130 staked will be hoping the owner, Eamon McElroy, is prepared to pay the £22,500 supplementary fee to enter his horse in the race. Whether he represents value at the [120.0] currently available, given his participation is in doubt, depends on how sure you are he'll run, but the percentage call is probably to wait until Saturday afternoon, when more will be known.

So if he is supplemented. And if he improves a fair bit. And if Denman and Kauto Star are a bit below par. And if Paul Carberry can ride a canny tactical race on him. Then perhaps a major upset is on the cards.