What We Learnt From Cheltenham's November Meeting

The November meeting at Cheltenham gave us some big clues ahead of the festival in March and for us the stand out clue came in the way of the Champion Chase division.

Although Rouge Vif dropped out of the Shloer Chase on Sunday, it still saw superstar Defi Du Seuil take on Put The Kettle On For Henry De Bromhead.

The soft ground made the race a real stamina test and it was the mare from Ireland that stole the show with, Philip Hobbs dual festival winner being pulled up, giving his second poor performance in a row at jumps racing HQ.

It has seen Put The Kettle On now gone from 16/1 into 7/1 for the Champion Chase at the festival and having ran at Cheltenham three times now, she remains unbeaten.

Duc Des Genievres ran a cracker on debut for Paul Nicholls with a strong second having gone from the front, giving his best run since winning the Arkle back in 2019.

Henry De Bromhead seems to hold a huge hand in this year's Champion Chase market, with that being the best performance so far this season from a horse certain to run in the race.

The Cross Country Chase on the Friday gave us some big clues for the marathon race at the festival and not in the way we thought it would.

Last year's winner of the March contest, Easysland was a disappointing fourth having jumped poorly and been outstayed by veterans in the race.

It was not the performance that Ante-post backers of the French horse would have wanted and he saw his price of 2/1 drift out to 5/2 off the back of that run.

Second favourite Tiger Roll, unfortunately looked a shadow of the horse that he has been over the last few seasons with it looking like his Grand National winning days are now behind him.

The superstar for Gordon Elliott was pulled up with a circuit to go, with his jumping and overall running throughout the race being below his past standard.

The horse to take out of the race was Potters Corner for Christian Williams, having his first start of the season the star stayer was a good third, getting better the further the race went on.

The 10 year old looks to be heading for the Cross Country in March and then onto the Grand National in April and for the Cheltenham event next year he has been slashed from 25/1 into 10/1.

One of the best performances across the three days was seen by the Dan Skelton trained Protektorat, who gave a breathtaking round of jumping in the Novices' Chase on the first day.

The son of Saint Des Saints was a previous course and distance winner over hurdles at Cheltenham ahead of the race, landing a listed event in January and since then has finished third in a Grade Two at the track whilst running a modest race at the festival in the Coral Cup.

His chase debut looked to be something special at Carlisle when jumping like a stag and he topped that performance off on Friday when being flawless at his fences.

This race, although in a smaller field was a bigger test for the gelding and he passed with flying colours with him being shaken up for the first time this term and showing he has an electric turn of foot.

He is now getting shouts of 16/1 for the Arkle at the Cheltenham festival in March and that is only going to get shorter if racing like that again.

The final horse that certainly caught the eye across the weekend was The Big Breakaway for Colin Tizzard, who was always said by his handler that he would turn out to be a decent chaser and on Sunday he proved that he is.

The five year old made his debut in the three mile Novices' Chase on the Sunday and saw off a field of 5 runners by a growing 10 lengths.

What was most exciting about the gelding was his jumping with his performance over fences being one of the best seen for a horse having his debut over the bigger obstacles.

The €360,000 was bought to be star over fences and although being a nice hurdles horse he looks to have a huge future and the RSA looks to be his race at the festival.