SHOULD One Man win today's Tote Gold Cup he will no doubtedly take the place of fellow grey Desert Orchid in the affections of English punters. Following his impressive victory in the King George VI Chase at Sandown, he is already rated only a few pounds behind the 1989 Gold Cup winner.
One Man has made great improvement this season, jumping impeccably to win his three races by wide margins at Ayr. Haydock and Sandown, where he stormed clear from the third last fence to beat Monsieur Le Cure by 14 lengths with a below par Master Oats three lengths adrift.
The Cumbria-based grey has performed poorly on two occasions at, Cheltenham, most recently in the Sun Alliance Chase two years ago. So in that respect he resembles Desert Orchid who. while eventually winning his Gold Cup narrowly from the outsider Yahoo, never seemed to like this course. But this is not to say One Man has an aversion to the Prestbury track.
If he has his Achilles' heel, the one most likely to exploit it is Imperial Call, who, like One Man, has made tremendous improvement this season. Fergie Sutherland's seven-year-old is only a second season novice, but he certainly caught the imagination when beating Strong Platinum in a handicap chase at Leopardstown in mid-January when, if the heavy ground was in his favour and against his rival the two-and-a-quarter-mile was short of his best distance.
Imperial Call then made all the running to win the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup over three miles at Leopardstown. beating Master Oats by six lengths with Monsieur Le Cure a length-and-a-half further back.
It is with more hope than confidence that I take Imperial Call to beat One Man - I find it hard to look beyond this duo - but, Conor O'Dwyer, who is riding with such verve this term though yet to ride a Festival winner, is confident and his likable West Cork based trainer is satisfied the horse will jump a clear round.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)