Betfair Chase Big Race Verdict: Back Haiti to hit the high notes for Curtis

• Strong support for Grey Dawning on the Sportsbook

• Can Venetia find her stride with Haydock specialist?

• Alan Dudman answers the key questions for the Betfair Chase 

• It's Safer Gambling Week - bet at your best with Betfair's SG tools

Will it be last year's one-two again?

With rain forecast for Saturday, there's still hope for the mud lover Royal Pagaille for his soft conditions but even as a two-time winner of the Grade 1 Betfair Chase (15:00 Haydock) he isn't particularly fancied on the Sportsbook to make it an incredible three. The going on Friday morning was good to soft from the track.

Grey Dawning's second in the race 12 months ago still haunts his trainer Dan Skelton, seeing his star staying chaser virtually legless at the end of the grueling test - one that certainly impacted on the rest of his campaign.

"We're going up there with no excuses," said Skelton. "It certainly wasn't fitness that got him beat last year. He was fit and he's fit again now. He's at the peak of his life in terms of age and hopefully it's all enough.

"Once that happened last year, I wouldn't say it automatically felt like we had to put it all back together but we had to say, OK, where do we go now?"

From 6/52.20 into 1/12.00, he remains a rock-solid and strong betting favourite on Sportsbook. Can he go one better?

Time for Haiti to announce himself on the Grade 1 staying stage

Haiti Couleurs is in the same position as Grey Dawning was 12 months ago - ie a novice coming into top company and bridge that gap.

He's a 154-rated fencer which still has him 12lbs behind Grey Dawning officially but he is one of two in the field along with Handstands with race fitness on his side with a nice win over hurdles.

As 3m6f National Hunt Chase winner and 3m5f Irish Grand National, emphatically he stays, and while the question is a perfectly sound one to raise in terms of the class angle for the race, we've seen in the past with Bristol De Mai that a certain type of horse does ever so well in this.

The two outsiders

Handstands goes for a bang in-form yard in Ben Pauling. He's 8-42 in the last two weeks at 19%, but it doesn't tell the whole story as he has fired in 22 chase winners already this campaign at a strike-rate of 34%.

Resplendent Grey beat his Handstands in the Colin Parker Memorial Intermediate Chase at Carlisle last month over a trip that would have been far from ideal at 2m4f. It pressure his jumping and Pauling said he wasn't awake fully, but he should be respected as a Grade 1 winning novice.

Stellar Story was a good novice last season without being an outstanding one. He was a regular in Grade 1 events but fell short in the Brown Advisory (a four length second), a second at Navan and a well beaten four of four at Leopardstown last Christmas.

He is fit with a recent run this term, and he looks a horse with plenty of stamina as a previous Albert Bartlett winner in heavy going. The softer the better, the sterner test the better. Elliott always labelled him a big chaser, a staying chaser and is a Grade 2 winning novice.

Trainer form

Dan Skelton: 20-81 at 25% last 14 days. At Haydock 14-84 at 17%.

Rebecca Curtis: 0-8 last 14 days.

Venetia Williams: 0-14 last 14 days. At Haydock 147-74 at 19%.

Gordon Elliott: 10-64 at 16% last 14 days.

Ben Pauling: 8-42 last 14 days at 19%. At Haydock 3-16 at 19%.

Betfair Chase Big Race Verdict:

Grey Dawning is undoubtedly the classy one here, and his price was into 10/111.91 just after lunchtime on Friday on the eve of the race.

If he wins, fair enough, but with Royal Pagaille, while brilliant at Haydock, now at the veteran stage of his career, I think Haiti Couleurs at the price can run well.

With Handstands in the race as the pace-setter and confirmed runner from the front, expect Haiti to working his way into contention, and to pull out his stamina down into the straight.

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