GOLD CUP PREVIEW:WITH GROUND conditions testing at Punchestown, stamina should be at a premium for today's festival centrepiece, the €275,000 Guinness Gold Cup, and that's where Notre Pere looks to hold a decisive edge over his rivals.
With a typically wry sense of humour, Jim Dreaper has described Notre Pere as the slowest horse in his famous old Kilsallaghan yard, hardly a statement to encourage hopes before a contest against a former Gold Cup hero in War Of Attrition as well as a Grade One two-and-a-half-mile performer like Imperial Commander.
But with overnight rain forecast for going already described as soft, this looks like being a race where grit will count for more than anything else. That’s where Notre Pere will come into his own and it’s not as if the giant eight-year-old can be dismissed as a mere slogger either. He is a Grade One-winning novice that travelled better than he ever has when dotting up in the Welsh National at Chepstow in December and then ran Neptune Collonges to five lengths in the Hennessy at Leopardstown last February.
A pre-Cheltenham setback, as well as a period of better going conditions, means Notre Pere hasn’t been seen since but he has got his ground now, and he should also be relatively fresh compared to some of these.
That Hennessy performance, behind the winner of today’s race for the last two years, looks as good a single piece of form as is available today and conditions look like being ideal for him too.
Imperial Commander is Notre Pere’s big danger according to the ante-post betting for today and the Ryanair Chase winner certainly looks the best option among a four-strong cross-channel challenge.
His trainer, Nigel Twiston Davies, was in pretty bullish form yesterday and said: “The ground doesn’t worry him and the trip won’t either. It was a smashing run at Cheltenham and I hope there is another.”
There has been some speculation that Imperial Commander may prefer racing left-handed but considering he has only tried right-handed once before, in last December’s King George, that looks a bit of a reach. Less so, however, is the evidence that he has been beaten in his two starts at three miles over fences. The Twiston-Davies team were badly out of form last Christmas but stamina could still be a concern.
Twiston-Davies’ old ally, Peter Scudamore, always maintained that even those two-and-a-half-mile horses who look nailed on to stay often don’t manage to do it. Imperial Commander could well prove to be an exception but there is still an undoubted question-mark.
The question mark over the 2006 hero War Of Attrition is definitely ground with Mouse Morris reporting yesterday: “The ground is gone for him. It will definitely be heavy I’d say.” The same comment looks to apply to Schindlers Hunt, Scotsirish, Alberta’s Run and Air Force One, something that makes an ostensibly open looking Grade One possibly easier to predict.
“He is over the problem and the ground has come right for him. He is in good form,” Dreaper said yesterday. This time last year Notre Pere was being pulled up in a handicap at this festival but he looks a much more formidable horse now.
After landing a valuable home handicap in the Troytown this season, and doing the same away from home at Chepstow, he now looks ready to step up to Grade One status.
