Energumene, Noble Yeats and Paisley Park can pass Festival rehearsals on a bumper card at the home of jumps racing
Paul Nicholls is one of the finest trainers that National Hunt racing has seen, but even he cannot edit what is written into a horse’s genes and it is a slight surprise to see his six-year-old Il Ridoto challenging for favouritism in the valuable two-and-a-half mile handicap chase on Saturday at Cheltenham, which will need to pass an inspection at 7.30am to get the go-ahead to race.
Il Ridoto has run near-identical races over track and trip on his last two starts, travelling well and making a strong move into contention before fading on the run to the line. The going is, if anything, a little more testing on Saturday and his price of around 6-1 is easy to resist, not least with the progressive Fugitif (1.50) in the field and on offer at similar odds.
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