Coral Gold Cup – Newbury – Saturday 30th November

Just the 16 confirmations at the 5-day stage for the prestigious Coral Gold Cup at Newbury at 3.00 on Saturday, and most bookmakers are willing to offer 4 places currently, as it appears as if most (if not all) of those 16 would be declared you’d imagine.

Colonel Harry has been ante-post favourite for a long while, and he has an almost identical profile to last year’s winner Datsalrightgino. But while the sadly ill-fated Datsalrightgino was sent off 16/1 when winning for Jamie Snowden and Gavin Sheehan, Colonel Harry is a best priced 6/1 now and priced up as if he is definitely going to improve for the sizable step up in trip.

Colonel Harry has Grade 2-winning novice chase form, and a boatload of Grade 1-placed novice chase form from last season, and has exactly the right profile for this race. But for me, as stated, he’s priced up as if it’s a cast-iron guarantee that he’ll stay the 3m2f trip.

Instead, given I’m cold on the Cheltenham handicap chase form featuring Senior Chief and Broadway Boy, and Midnight River needs to improve markedly on his reappearance run, there are plenty of chinks in the armour of the other single figure priced horses.

So, in sheep-like fashion, I think it’s well worth jumping on the Venetia Williams bandwagon, as she ripped apart last weekend’s races over fences, and her Victtorino looks to be the type of horse to me that could even make up into a fringe Gold Cup-type horse in time.

Victtorino won two valuable Ascot handicap chases on his first two starts of last season in ridiculously cosy fashion, as a leggy 5-year-old. Looking like the type to turn into a real bull of a horse, he could have any amount of improvement to come, and so at 7/1 each-way with BetMGM or BetGoodwin for 4 places, he looks an excellent 1-star * ante-post play for WhichBookie for Saturday’s feature.

It’s worth noting that he’s available at 15/2 or 8/1 elsehwere, but only for 3 places, and if you’re not of the inclination to lock in 4 places now, then 8/1 with William Hill win only is an obviously more suitable play for you.

The other horse who seems to be overpriced to me is the Willie Mullins-trained Horantzau D’Airy, who has built up a nice level of experience over fences over the last 8 months or so. Given how his two excellent runs in the Kerry and Munster Nationals panned out, there’s a strong sense that a well-run 3m2f on a galloping track with some juice in the ground, is going to allow Horantzau D’Airy to produce a career best.

At 12/1 each-way with Bet365 for 4 places also, Horantzau D’Airy has to be worth backing now too, as I don’t think there’s too many horses in Saturday’s field that would have been able to run on into the same parish as Flooring Porter in the Kerry National. It might just be the best piece of form on offer, given just how good Flooring Porter is when granted a certain set of conditions.