Cheltenham Friday

THERE was quite a turn-up in the Glenfarclas Cross Country Handicap Chase, with Tiger Roll a bitter disappointment, and hot favourite Easysland below form after a sloppy round of jumping on faster ground than he’s faced here in the past.

The sound surface was very much in favour of 2017 winner Kingswell Theatre (Michael/Tom Scudamore), who was given an aggressive ride to make almost all the running, and the 22/1 chance responded gamely when tackled by Beau De Brizais (Philip Hobbs/Micheal Nolan) and Potters Corner (Christian Williams/Jack Tudor), winning by five lengths and two lengths.

Easysland’s official rating of 171 meant that only three of the runners were in the handicap proper, with the winner 18lb wrong and the runner-up 13lb out of the weights, but as is often the case here, it’s the ability to cope with the course rather than weight which tends to be a determining factor, and Tiger Roll was never travelling before being pulled up some way from home by Robbie Power.

It remains to be seen whether this was an off-day, or a sign that the dual Grand National winner is simply losing his love of the game. He sweated up quite badly in the preliminaries, incidentally.

Easysland was well positioned, but all his winning form is in very deep ground, and he stuttered into a few of his fences in contrast to his slick display on previous visits. He’s got quite a low style of jumping, which is effective in these events, but while he was quick away from his obstacles in December and March, he lost ground at crucial times on the quicker ground here. This was disappointing on the face of it, but he’s likely to take all the beating back on a more testing surface.

Tom Scudamore explained what a family horse the winner is: “He has been a fantastic horse for Michael, myself and my daughter Margot rides him at home too, so he is a very special horse for all our family.

“To be fair to him, he pretty much knows where he is going, even at the canal turns and things, he is so quick and away. It was a race before he came along that I was never really keen on. Since he has come along, I absolutely love it.

“You have got to have the right type of horse to go and do it. It is certainly not an afterthought when you are taking on the likes of Enda Bolger and the French horses, who are doing it so often.

“A lot of the time I think we think ‘we will run them in a cross-country race to try and liven them up or doing something different with them’, whereas it’s a main target for a lot of other people, and when you have that mentality you’re always playing catch-up.”