Danoli can raise roof at Festival

A YEAR of dreams and anxiety will come to a peak today in steeplechasing's greatest prize, the Tote Cheltenham Gold Cup. Such emotions look appropriate with the charismatic trio of Imperial Call, Dorans Pride and Danoli set to fly the Irish flag. However, apply a cold, logic approach to finding the winner.

Question marks have jostled for post ion next to all the leading contenders this season and even on the eve of the race, they are still queuing.

Can Imperial Call win the Gold Cup again off such an interrupted preparation? Can Danoli jump round? Will Coome Hill be quick enough? Do One Man and Dublin Flyer really stay?

Will Dorans Pride even run? Each of the leading contenders and most of the others have something to prove. One will answer successfully but to confidently predict which one is a puzzle that Rubik would be proud of.

Michael Hourigan's predicament is simple. After finally deciding to allow Dorans Pride take his chance, Hourigan has seen a determined heat haze settle on Cheltenham and stubbornly refuse to leave before his eyes.

Hourigan has always maintained he will withdraw the horse if the ground is not suitable and will walk the course this morning to decide.

"It will be a last minute decision which is not my fault. Dorans Pride is fit and well but we will not run on firm ground," Hourigan said yesterday.

As Imperial Call cantered through a less than strenuous work out yesterday morning, it was difficult not to think of last year's concern before the Gold1 Cup that even the then officially good ground might have been too quick.

That worry Was wiped away by a wonderfully convincing victory but last year's racing surface was a Dublin Bay mud flat compared to the glorified ring road that will face Imperial Call now.

Fergie Sutherland, however, is playing his persistent questioners with the straightest of straight bats. An interrupted preparation through a series of niggly injuries Imperial Call may have had, but recent work has convinced Sutherland that he has his horse right for

"I'm expecting a big run. The horse is in very good form and I'm not worried about the ground," he rumbled yesterday.

Sutherland is one of the few that isn't and for those determined to find the winner it could pay to concentrate resources on those few. Clerk of the course Philip Arkwright is insisting that the ground on the Gold Cup course will be good.

It's a message that must have failed to console Walter Dennis whose Coome Hill has risen dramatically through the ratings on the back of some stamina laden performances through the winter.

Dennis will also walk the track this morning before deciding if he will allow Coome Hill run and while the horse has won on fast ground he has shown his best on soft and he will need to be at his best today. Cyborgo is an acknowledged soft ground specialist.

Addington Boy and Unguided Missile are not but their trainer Gordon Richards doesn't have the best Cheltenham record and believes that One Man, classy but flawed, is his best chance anyway. Such assumptions have been known to crash around cocky ears before but add in Dublin Hyer's stamina doubts and punters are left with Mr Mulligan and Danoli as two probables against the field.

"The ground is definitely fast but it shouldn't trouble him," Foley said and indeed if faced between a choice of this ground or a squelchy morass, the Bagnealstown trainer would pick this every time.

The same applies to Dublin born trainer Noel Chance who has just brought Mr Mulligan back in time for today after the horse took a disasterous looking fall in the King George at Christmas.

As an each-way argument it is convincing but Danoli should have a better winning chance. The biggest question mark of all is though, will Danoli jump around. If he does, and does it adequately, Cheltenham may descend into riotously chaotic scenes.

That's as big an if as any other in the race but on a day when emotions will count for so much, bet on Danoli doing it.