Once again, much of Wednesday’s BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase revolves around JP McManus’s attempt to finally land an elusive first success in the two-mile crown.
Overwhelmingly successful in so many of the big festival prizes, the biggest and most successful owner in the sport’s history continues to find the Champion Chase frustratingly elusive.
It hardly keeps the billionaire businessman awake at night, although underestimating McManus’s competitive edge is a presumptive exercise. Along with Kempton’s King George VI Chase it’s just about the only major National Hunt prize he hasn’t won. It’s hard to credit that doesn’t niggle the Irishman a little.
This time his hopes centre on Majborough. With last year’s winner Marine Nationale ruled out through injury, the McManus star is a clear odds-on favourite. But we have been here before, and with horses that seemed a safer betting proposition than Majborough.
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McManus’s Defi Du Seuil was a 2-5 shot only to flop in fourth six years ago. Last year’s runner-up Jonbon was odds-on too only for his chance to be ruined by a shuddering mistake at the sixth fence.
Maybe the most startling evidence of the dangers of betting odds-on came in 2017 when Douvan’s 2-9 SP was even shorter than the modern two-mile paragon Sprinter Sacre in his pomp and blew out completely.
Sprinter Sacre’s stable companion Altior was another that rewarded short odds but much of what we know about Majborough suggests he’s hardly any “mortal lock” to finally deliver for his owner.
That he’s never fallen in his seven starts over fences hasn’t been for the want of trying it seems.
Blunders at the final two fences of last year’s Arkle grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory. Comparisons to a fridge were even made about his jumping technique on his first start of this season in Cork. He managed only third at Christmas on decent ground.
Only when jockey Mark Walsh was given a tactical free rein did Majborough look a champion in waiting at the Dublin Racing Festival. First-time cheek pieces and an aggressive Walsh ride produced a 19-length rout of Marine Nationale.
“If he can repeat what he did at the Dublin Racing Festival, he’ll be very hard to beat. He jumped fantastically, galloped and jumped,” said trainer Willie Mullins. “We put cheek pieces on him, and they’ve just made him concentrate a bit better. He has a big engine.”
That was on heavy going, however, and it will be a different story here. There is also widespread expectation that Walsh will adopt the same tactics again and forearmed is forewarned. There is always the reality too that a single error at two-mile pace can confound any tactical plan.
In Majborough’s favour, though, is far from vintage opposition, underlined perhaps by how connections of the novice Irish Panther reckon it is easier for him to take his chance here rather than the Arkle.
L’eau Du Sud is an admirable but hardly exciting horse. Quilixios fell at the final fence last year but has not run since. His stable companion Captain Guinness was a surprise winner two years ago but has looked a pale shadow of his best this season. The veteran sports his own first-time cheek pieces.
The only other runner ranked in the 170s is Majborough’s stable companion Il Etait Temps and he endured a very tired fall at Ascot in January from which he took an age to rise.
How he bounces out of that is a big guess. Nevertheless, Il Etait Temps will relish better ground and is a proven top-flight performer at the trip. Betting in the region of 5-1 about him coming back to his best might ultimately be a safer bet than Majborough at odds on.
