It was a fantastic start to the Festival yesterday with some thoroughly pulsating National Hunt Racing around Prestbury Park. Followers of my selections will have seen I put up Mister Whitaker in the final race of Day 1 at around the 8/1 mark. He travelled well throughout the race and reeled in Nicky Henderson's Right Be in the final furlong to win by a head in a compelling renewal of the Close Brothers Handicap.
My selection today comes in the 14:10, the RSA Chase in the form of Patrick Kelly's PRESENTING PERCY. This 7yo son of Sir Percy was a winner here at the Festival last year in the Pertemps Hurdle when beating Barney Dwan by an impressive 3-and-a-half-lengths. Since then he went on to beat De Plotting Shed in a beginners' chase at Galway on heavy ground before finishing third in the Grade 2 Florida Pearl Chase at Punchestown.
However since that run at Punchestown in December he has gone on to produce two of his best performances. Both of these came at Gowran Park with the first being a 5-length victory over Alan Shearer's Augusta Kate in the Grade 2 Galmoy Hurdle and the latter being in the Red Mills Chase in February. Our Duke was the only horse to beat him that day and he is currently third favourite for the Gold Cup on Friday and to me that piece of form speaks absolute volumes.
This morning Matt Chapman on ITV was quoted saying that connections 'are very concerned' with the soft ground at Cheltenham today. This goes completely against the form of Presenting Percy who when we look at his lifetime form on heavy it reads 11112. The ground at Cheltenham was heavy and I feel it won't have dried too much overnight.
Even when running on soft ground Presenting Percy's form is still very impressive with 3 runs on soft and 2 victories. He is currently priced at 5/2 and I think he is backable down to the 9/4 mark in what looks quite a tough day for finding winners.
