Savills New Year's Day Grade Three Chase Guide

Al Boum Photo has been the winner of this event for the last two seasons before going on to land the Grade One Cheltenham Gold Cup at the festival.

A short priced favourite, the nine year old should routinely win this race before heading back to the festival looking to become a record breaker and land the festival feature for a third straight year.

The nine year old has been a superstar during his career and landed the first Gold Cup for his trainer Willie Mullins, who at the moment is in the form of his life.

There have been some shocks during the Christmas period but if Al Boum Photo does not win this Grade Three event then it would be the biggest by far.

Mullins wants to see the race being worthwhile for Al Boum Photo so he fields two other runners in the event to make sure the workout is good enough to get him ready for the Gold Cup.

Brahma Bull for Rich Ricci is the first of the two and having been a smart hurdles horse, has also been a fair runner over fences.

Having won at Cork in November 2019, he was seen for the first time again in November this year and he finished a fair second behind superstar Minella Indo.

He should improve for that run, but again this looks like another stepping stone towards a bigger seasonal goal.

Acapella Bourgeois is a horse in his own right that possess a lot of talent but having his first run of the season and never being a Grade One rated horse he should be just making up the numbers in this one.

In February before the first Lockdown he was seen landing the Grade Three Bobbyjo Chase at Fairyhouse, seeing off Bellshill and Alpha Des Obeaux.

He will have to much better than that form to compete with stablemate Al Boum Photo and looks to be playing for the places like the rest of the horses if fully wound up for the race.

Djingle is a credible front runner for his trainer John Queally who will be looking to go from the front and try not to be caught at a big price.

However, his best runs have come in much lesser company with him finding it tough of late when finishing well behind the likes of Notebook, Chacun Pour Soi and Saint Roi in much better races then he should be running in.

Last time out was one of his best efforts before being bought down with him set to finish second behind the superb Chacun Pour Soi.

The step in trip will need to bring big improvement.

The final runner of the race is the big 40/1 outsider I'm A Game Changer for Andrew McNamara, who was a decent horse for Gordon Elliott and Gigginstown before being sold and also was a nice horse with Philip Hobbs in England.

However, he looks a difficult horse to win with and having been sold his old connections must be thinking he is not as good as he once was.

Making his stable debut he looks best watched and may be better when dropped down into handicaps later on in the season.