Betfair Chase |
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| Grade 1, Haydock Park 15:00 £200,000 guaranteed, 5yo plus, 3m 1f 125y, Class 1  |
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Grey Dawning, so often the nearly horse on these big afternoons, looks poised to keep Dan Skelton’s recent purple patch rolling at Haydock on Saturday, topping a seven-strong list. Twelve months ago he chased home only Venetia Williams’ admirable dual winner Royale Pagaille, and after the Skelton team’s sparkling turn at Cheltenham’s November meeting, there’s a sense they feel the moment might just be his this time.
The Betfair Chase goes the way of the Venetia Williams stable once again! An excellent ride in testing conditions from Charlie Deutsch onboard Royale Pagaille!
— Haydock Park Races (@haydockraces) November 23, 2024
Congratulations to all connections!🏆@BetfairRacing | @charliedeutsch2 | @VenetiaWRacing pic.twitter.com/8zzbfCZvpC
Skelton offered his assessment with typical candour: “It certainly wasn’t fitness that got him beat last year and he’s fit again now. He’s at the peak of his life in terms of age and hopefully it will all be enough.
“We’ve just got him really prepared for it, he’s had an away day and went the same day that Panic Attack did and has done everything asked of him. I couldn’t have asked for a better preparation.
“I don’t think there would be a question mark with him (having not had a run) and yes I was a bit nervous at Cheltenham with Panic Attack, but she’s different and there’s no negative to not having had a run with Grey Dawning.
“The forecast looks a bit in and out for the week, which is fine, we just don’t want anything like it was last year at the 11th hour.”
Skelton has been here before of course, landing this very race with Protektorat in 2022 and charting a Gold Cup course thereafter. Grey Dawning’s defeat in this contest last season, followed by a subdued showing in the King George at Kempton, prompted a rethink. The Cheltenham Festival was sidestepped in favour of a more bespoke Kelso-to-Aintree route, and that paid its own dividends.
A win on Saturday, Skelton says, would grant something trainers cherish: breathing room. “If you can win on seasonal debut, it just makes it that little bit easier as you don’t have to go looking. I don’t know what his season would look like this year after the Betfair, I’d rather not be drawn on that either, but I’m looking forward to Haydock and we’ve got him in good shape.
“Once he got beat last year, it wasn’t like we felt we had to put things back together, but you do think ‘OK, where do we go now?’.
“You’re trying to find a race because you haven’t had a win and the best races for that were always going to be Kelso and Aintree and ultimately we got the spring right with him.
“We got beat by Gaelic Warrior at Aintree, but Patrick Mullins will tell anyone who will listen he is going to win the Gold Cup, so maybe that was actually a very good run.”
Standing between Grey Dawning and that elusive breakthrough are familiar foes and fresh challengers: the evergreen Royale Pagaille bids for a hat-trick, while Haiti Couleurs, Stellar Story, Hitman and Marsh Wren all feature among the likely contenders. Ben Pauling’s Handstands, a Grade One scorer in the Scilly Isles and runner-up in the Colin Parker on reappearance, also takes his chance.
Pauling sounded satisfied with where his horse sits heading in: “I was very happy with the result we ended up with at Carlisle, in terms of a fitness run.
“At home he has just been brilliant but he was a little ring rusty, looking about, and although he didn’t jump badly, he was very ponderous.
“I’m hopeful we will get a bit of a lead and I’m certainly not planning on making it because I don’t think we had any tactical speed at Carlisle and it was a funny old race, but it will have done his job.”
All the ingredients, then, for a Betfair Chase that promises to be run with all the familiar theatre of a late-autumn Haydock showdown.
Betfair Chase (registered as the Lancashire Chase)
£200,000 guaranteed, 5yo plus, 3m 1f 125y, Class 1
7 entries
Going: Good to Soft
NO. FORM HORSE AGE WGT TRAINER JOCKEY
1 /2P12- Grey Dawning 8 11-10 Dan Skelton
2 1311-1 Haiti Couleurs 8 11-10 Rebecca Curtis
3 111P-2 Handstands 6 11-10 Ben Pauling
4 22P7-1 Hitman 9 11-10 Paul Nicholls Freddie Gingell
5 1P56P- Royale Pagaille 11 11-10 Venetia Williams
6 1422-3 Stellar Story 8 11-10 Gordon Elliott
7 113/1- Marsh Wren 9 11-3 Stuart Edmunds
