Right on Cue for the Supreme Novice’s Hurdle
Day One | Paul Berry | February 18, 2011 at 9:15 am
The Supreme Novice’s Hurdle kicks off the 2011 Cheltenham Festival, and the possible emergence of a racing superstar. Can this wonderhorse justify his position as the heavy market leader? Our resident blogger Mr Chambers takes a look.
Think back 12 months when Dunguib was being touted as a dead cert in the opening contest of the Cheltenham Festival in the Supreme Novice’s Hurdle.
The Irish superstar had blown everything out of the water before going to Prestbury Park but when push came to shove the 4/5 favourite failed to land the money and got punters off to a terrible start when finishing a gallant third behind Menorah.
Fast-forward to the present day and there is a similar pattern with another ‘superstar’ in Cue Card. Both Dunguib and Cue Card emphatically won the Champion Bumper the year before tackling the Supreme and both were expected to just have to turn up to win the festival opener.
Colin Tizzard’s Cue Card is currently 5/2 favourite in the ante-post market and it would be ludicrous for anyone to take this stingy price. Tizzard has been very open about this horse and he has already stated that he is unsure himself whether or not the five-year-old will run in the Supreme as he may elect to set his sights higher and contest the Champion Hurdle later on in the day.
Agreed. The horse has done very little wrong this year and if he takes his place in the field will be tough to beat but his four-and-a-half length defeat to Menorah has cast a shadow on whether or not he is top class. The novices are bound to go off lickety-split from the outset and he is yet to prove he has stamina in abundance.
With some many future stars battling out the contest with the likes of Nicky Henderson, Paul Nicholls and Willie Mullins likely to saddle some up-and-coming hotshots you have to be against the jolly.
The current market price of 5/2 offers exceptionally poor value about any runner in a grade one but to back a novice at the skinny odds would be sheer craziness.
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Although racing is all about opinions, and I respect the angles you’ve gone for here, I cannot help but think this has been written by someone who has been burnt last year, or maybe the last couple of years by backing the favourite in the race.
My take on Cue Card is this, at 5/2 he offers infinately better value than Dunguib did last year. The only way I can look at that price and think it’s bad value is by worrying about horses falling in front of him, however the same worry applies to all horses in the race and you can aide yourself by backing the best horse in the race with some of the best jumping. What offers better value £20 win at 5/2 or £10ew on something that has a lot less on their CV.
I don’t think defeat to Menorah casts a shadow over his ability at all. Would you have expected Menorah to get within 4 lengths of say Khyber Kim, Binocular or Go Native last season, because that’s the sort of level we are talking about. Cue Card is a novice and we should expect the usual sort of progression from him as we should any other horse. Now, if he’s posting form like he did in the International on just his 5th start, isn’t it fair to say he’s a way ahead of most novices anyway. The form of Menorah can’t be cramped with Bothy following up his Greatwood effort with another fine effort in the Totesport Trophy off 9lbs higher. Add to this that Colin Tizzard thought Cue Card was a little short of work ahead of the International and he didn’t seem to come up the hill with the same zip that we’ve seen before, it’s reasonable to expect him to impove on that, and for arriving at the festival fresh.
The last time a novice posted a figure as high as Cue Card did, was Black Jack Ketchum and he carried all before him as a novice before going off the rails. Before that, I believe it was Golden Cygnet, so there’s some measure of what the horse has done in his very short career.
I’ve had this discussion with people about Cue Card who have written him off purely because he won the bumper (and most likely because they had backed Dunguib, Cousin Vinny and Cork All Star in previous years) and it seems to me some people are willing to change their minds on the matter and some aren’t. I’m a respecter of stats and trends, they’re formed for a reason, but the horse doesn’t care about stats, trends or markets.
In my opinion the only thing that will stop Cue Card winning the Supreme, is bad luck, and if you’re afraid of bad luck you should be a bookie not a punter, or not even in the game at all.