Handicap weights: a closer look at the handicap chases

The handicap chases were the one area in which Britain and Ireland were well matched last year. There are four such races at the Cheltenham Festival and in 2021 the score was two-each.

The first handicap chase of the meeting is the Ultima on Tuesday, just before the Champion Hurdle. No Irish-trained horse has won this race since 2006, although plenty have gone off favourite or joint-favourite including two in the last four years.

The best record belongs to novice chasers and two such horses stand out in this year’s entries. Corach Rambler (pictured) was about to give Does He Know a race when he unseated his rider five fences from home at Ascot last time and he gets a pretty hefty weight concession from that rival back in a handicap.

Also look out for Kiltealy Briggs. His owner’s company sponsors this race and he has the style of racing, as a bold jumper who races up with the pace, that tends to be well suited to the test. Plenty of his form this season has worked out well.

It looks a really competitive renewal of the Grand Annual Chase on Wednesday. This race can often go the way of exposed older chasers, but a raft of interesting novices look set to take their chance this year. Il Ridoto and Red Rookie are a couple of British-trained runners who look to have been saved for the race, but watch out for former classy hurdler Couer Sublime if he runs here instead of in Tuesday’s Arkle.

The Paddy Power Plate on Thursday is often treated as a re-run of similar handicaps run at Cheltenham throughout the winter, like November’s Paddy Power Gold Cup or the Racing Post Gold Cup. But, like other festival handicaps, novices are the horses to follow: Imperial Alcazar and Adrimel fit that bill. Admittedly, Celebre D’Allen, who is having his first season in Britain and whose owners have won this race twice before, commands plenty of respect so progressive has he been.

There are no handicap chases on Friday so Thursday’s closing race, the Kim Muir, is the last chance to bag a handicap chase winner. Only amateur jockeys can ride in the race (the ‘Mr/Mrs/Miss’ in front of their name denotes their amateur status) and the winner has come from Gordon Elliott’s yard in each of the last two years. Frontal Assault has a similar sort of profile to last year’s winner Mount Ida and is currently clear at the head of the betting.