This weekend’s racing has seen the ante-post market for the 2019 rendition of the Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival settle into shape and it’s no surprise to see an odds-on poke top the market at this venture.
Nicky Henderson’s Altior was sublime in winning the Tingle Creek at Sandown on Saturday as he bested the game Un de Sceaux for Willie Mullins and moved into odds-on favouritism to retain his title come March.
The defending champion chaser was a general even money shot to repeat the trick before a small but select field went to post at a wintry Sandown Park on Saturday and was soon priced up 8/11 after he put in a very taking reappearance indeed under Nico de Boinville.
“If he was going to get beat it would have been today,” said Henderson in the aftermath, perhaps summing up the thoughts of the ante-post compilers.
He is now fifteen from fifteen over obstacles.
Back in an honourable second was the old reliable Un de Sceaux, who has earned seven figures for connections in his career, with the Mullins runner having his ideal set of circumstances - first time out, two miles, deep ground - but just couldn’t get the better of the Henderson runner.
He’s now as large as 20/1 to come back and reverse the places with Altior in March, with Leopardstown at Christmas looking an easier place to take a tilt at a tenth Grade 1 win for his connections.
But where will a challenge to Altior come from? It may not have appeared out of the John Durkan at Punchestown on Sunday, despite Min’s impressive victory there under a cracking ride from the resurgent Ruby Walsh.
The winner of that Grade 1, second to the Henderson runner in last year’s Champion Chase, is as short as 8/1 to go one better this time around, having been available at 16/1.
But Walsh suggested, albeit with a smile, that his runner might be campaigned to avoid another clash with the unbeaten king of the two-mile chasing division.
“He jumped well, he’s a stronger horse and improving – the target is avoid Altior I’d say."
It looks, then, like Altior's biggest challenge this campaign might be finding something to line up against him.
Altior wins the Betfair Tingle Creek Chase at @Sandownpark from Un De Sceaux!
