Events / Graham Cunningham / 27 February 2009 /

The big one is nearly upon us and Cheltenham is beginning to dominate racing minds. But the sport goes on of course. Appropriately enough Graham has split this week's offering 50/50 - half on this weekend's action and half on Prestbury Park chatter.

Anxiety is building as Cheltenham looms. Nicky Henderson is hurrying to get Binocular to peak for the Champion Hurdle and Paul Nicholls is planning a less public racecourse workout for the Gold Cup hero Denman.

Ratings fans are getting agitated about the Festival handicap weights, but all this masks the fact that there are two weekends before the Festival. Racing UK and Betmaverick.com analyst Graham Cunningham touches on the tension and tips up a rejuvenated Flat performer for Saturday's Newbury card.

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It could be Ouzbeck or Hold Em...but Newbury feature looks very hard to crack

All puzzles have a solution if you are bright enough to work them out.

Sad to say, I suspect I don't have the requisite brain power to find the key to the two valuable handicaps which highlight this Saturday's featured jumping cards at Newbury and Doncaster.

Take Newbury's totesport.com Gold Cup at 3.10. Last year's winner Natal heads the weights, but he returns in subdued form from a 15lb higher mark and blinkers need to pep him up hugely for the double to be a realistic hope.

Hold Em has to be a contender after his good effort in the Racing Post Chase, while Ouzbeck departed on the same card at Kempton last week but will relish this drying ground and has to be high on the short list.

Starzaan and the JP McManus duo of Reveillez and Hobbs Hill add further complexity to a fiercely open affair and, all in all, I suspect the best ploy is to look to the following race in search of a safer investment.

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Dishdasha looks made to measure on his return to jumping

And the investment in question is Dishdasha in the totesportcasino.com handicap Hurdle at 3.45.

Alison Thorpe's gelding faces some useful rivals in this two miler, including last year's totesport Trophy winner Wingman and the reliable Norman The Great.

Mutual Friend is another to consider as he returns from a winter break, but Dishdasha finished just ahead of him at Cheltenham last autumn and can repeat the dose under conditions which should suit him ideally.

Dishdasha has always boasted an ability to travel sweetly through his races and, although he plainly handles Cheltenham, a flatter track like Newbury is always liable to suit him ideally.

What can't be denied is that Dishdasha lines up in great fettle, as he has been revitalised for a spell on the Flat and absolutely bolted up in a handicap on Kempton's Polytrack just over two weeks ago.

Jamie Spencer and Shane Kelly have been steering Dishdasha recently and some punters might bridle to see little-known amateur PJ Tolman aboard this time.

However, Tolman has created a good impression in riding a couple of winners over jumps this week and his 7lb claim looks an added bonus as Dishdasha bids to confirm that he is on top of his game at present.

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Gallops, schmallops....give me videos and the form book anyday

Of all the annual rituals in the build-up to the Cheltenham Festival the most confusing of all is surely the round of racecourse gallops.

Naturally, the media are happy to screen or write about these "crucial workouts" and the betting public are then asked to believe the horses in question have either enhanced their Festival credentials or sown the seeds of uncertainty.

The circus came to town again on Wednesday when Nicky Henderson took a powerful team to Kempton, while Denman is pencilled in for a similar away day next week and the Irish bush telegraph is sure to hum after a host of top trainers gallop their best Cheltenham hopes after racing at Leopardstown on Sunday.

But what do we really learn from these carefully stage managed exercises?

Wednesday's Kempton workouts told us that the Triumph Hurdle fancy Zaynar works as lazily as he tends to run and that the Champion Hurdler favourite Binocular can get warm and edgy before he gets down to business.

The perceived wisdom that Binocular didn't shine saw him drift slightly in Betfair's Champion market, but if looking to crab his claims I would much rather worry about the opposition than hang my hat on the risky assumption that he didn't impress in a routine spin with stablemate The Polomoche.

In short, we would all be much better spending an hour studying the videos of what leading fancies have actually done under race conditions than trying to read the tea leaves from racecourse gallops with no pace and no obstacles.

From what I could see, no serious buttons were pushed with Binocular at Kempton. And I certainly wouldn't be rushing to push the lay button as regards the Champion Hurdle just yet.

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When is a 114 horse not a 114 horse? Just ask the handicappers

Things you have a deep affection for often embarrass you from time to time and racing is no exception.

Some of the ragged starts we have seen over jumps recently are certainly hard to justify to casual viewers, while seldom a week goes by without new allegations of dirty work at the crossroads in some minor contest or other.

But to my mind one of the most embarrassing blots on racing's landscape as Cheltenham 2009 approaches relates to the inability of British and Irish handicappers to reach anything approaching agreement on how good certain horses are.

Take the case of Alexander Severus as an example. Edward O'Grady's gelding, who has been the subject of a sustained gamble for the Fred Winter Hurdle since his eyecatching equal third at Leopardstown, has a rating of just 114 in his homeland.

However, when the Festival weights were published this week the British handicappers completely ignored the maths of their Irish counterpart to pitch the four-year-old fully 20lb higher on 134.

The reason for the discrepancy relates to slippage, a subject discussed previously on this site and one which occurs when certain handicappers employ trainer-friendly methods which mean horses fail to rise through the ranks as swiftly as their ability suggests they should.

And, for what it's worth, I feel strongly that it is high time the Irish handicappers and the trainers they work with accepted that something must be done about it.

The bottom line is that the Irish assessor feels Alexander Severus is a very ordinary horse in ratings terms and yet punters on both sides of the Irish Sea are willing to back him to win a big Cheltenham handicap off 134.

Now that's just embarrassing. And something needs doing about it.

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