ONE of Britain’s biggest hopes The New Lion has 5lb to find with FINAL DEMAND (1.20) in today’s bust-up in the Turners.
Our ratings puts Dan Skelton’s runner on 143p. The ‘p’ denotes likely to improve — and he will need to if he is to stop the Willie Mullins runner.
Final Demand is on 148p so he is expected to improve too.
The six-year-old won a red-hot Grade 1 at Leopardstown by a tasty 12 lengths and did a fast time on the clock.
The New Lion — who was bought by JP McManus after his impressive Newbury win — has five other Mullins runners to beat too!
Yet the biggest threat to Final Demand will come from The Yellow Clay, according to the ratings. Gordon Elliott’s six-year-old has just 2lb to find with Final Demand.
The other British hope Potters Charm is not far behind the main principals on ratings and looks a big price at 14-1 in what promises to be one of the races of the week.
The big race today, the Queen Mother Champion Chase, is at the mercy of JONBON (4.00).
Nicky Henderson’s runner — going for an incredible 18th win in 21 runs — is finally getting the credit he deserves. Yet his CV is still missing that elusive Grade 1 course win.
That should change today as our ratings have him 9lb clear of his nearest rival Energumene.
Jonbon has looked better than ever this season and today’s race is not the strongest Champion Chase ever run. In fact it is not much better than a Grade 2 on form — and Jonbon has won two of those at the track.
Energumene — who has won the Champion Chase twice — is the main threat but he is 11 and those old legs aren’t getting any quicker.
His chance would be boosted by if the ground turned soft but a few early morning showers are unlikely to do that.
The big betting race of the day is the Coral Cup and Skelton’s BE AWARE (2.40) heads our ratings.
Langer Dan, trained by Skelton, won the last two runnings of the race and Be Aware could just edge this wide open race late.
His last three runs have all been in red-hot handicaps like this one and he handles the track — as his solid second to Burdett Road in the Greatwood Hurdle showed.