All eyes focused on Ascot as Sprinter Sacre finally returns to action

Racing’s absorption with Sprinter Sacre and his return to the track in today’s Clarence House Chase at Ascot could seem a little overblown.

He is only one horse among many, he has been away for a long time and the build-up to the Cheltenham Festival in March has been proceeding well enough in his absence.

Yet horses like Sprinter Sacre, and moments like this one, have been the essence of the game for 250 years.

It is 386 days since Sprinter Sacre pulled up at halfway in the Desert Orchid Chase at Kempton and found to be suffering from an irregular heartbeat, and another 248 since his last victory, at the end of a romp through Grade One feature events at the three major racing Festivals in the spring of 2013.

No one can know for sure how much of his exceptional talent remains intact but everyone has an opinion, the accuracy of which will become apparent in less than five minutes this afternoon.

And thanks to the circumstances, it is also possible to back that opinion with hard cash at odds that makes it feel worthwhile.

Sprinter Sacre’s price for the Clarence House has been all over the place already this week, from odds-on on Monday out to 2-1 on Thursday, before settling at around evens.

Very best

That in itself is a sign of the uncertainty that surrounds the nine-year-old, who was not just the best two-mile chaser of his generation two seasons ago, but one of the very best of any generation. Without the question marks, he would be long odds-on. Instead, Sprinter Sacre’s price for victory sits smack in the middle, at the tipping point between likely and unlikely.

Even Nicky Henderson and Barry Geraghty, Sprinter Sacre's trainer and jockey, cannot be sure what will happen.

For Henderson, the race looks like the least-worst decision, the one that keeps his options open as he plots a return to the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham, the race in which Sprinter Sacre produced one of the great Festival performances in 2013.

The ground is softer than ideal, but it could be worse at Newbury next month, which looks the only alternative if Sprinter Sacre is to have a run before the Festival.

Geraghty, meanwhile, suggested that his horse felt like “the Sprinter of old” after a schooling session at Newbury last month.

But Geraghty did not have a target on his back there. Today’s race includes three high-class opponents, including two runners – Dodging Bullets and Twinlight – who won at Grade One level last time out and will not give him an inch.

What the Newbury exercise did suggest is that the basic mechanics of an outstanding racehorse are still in place. His physique and cruising speed were as impressive as ever, and so too – one ring-rusty mistake apart – was his jumping. Sprinter Sacre could bolt up, or pull up, scrape home or go down fighting, march on towards the Cheltenham Festival . . . at this point, nobody knows for sure.

Guardian Service