Cheltenham Festival antepost tips: Triumph Hurdle preview and best bet

Racing betting tips: Cheltenham Festival antepost

1pt win Tritonic in JCB Triumph Hurdle at 12/1

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Barring Native River in the Gold Cup, the antepost adjustments for Cheltenham following last weekend’s racing centred around a whole host of quality-looking Irish horses.

Among them, Quilixios, who was clipped the obligatory two-to-three points across the board for the JCB Triumph Hurdle following his five and a half-length defeat of Saint Sam in the Tattersalls Ireland Spring Juvenile Hurdle.

That’s been a good Cheltenham pointer over the past decade, not only throwing up Triumph winner Our Conor but also subsequently placed horses Hisaabaat (2nd), Guitar Pete (3rd), Footpad (3rd), Mega Fortune (2nd) and Mr Adjudicator (2nd). Plus, of course, the ill-fated Sir Erec, who went off 11/10 for the same Festival race.

Quilixios doesn’t pay a huge amount of respect to his hurdles and trainer Gordon Elliott has even suggested that he’s possibly not going to really come into his own until sent over fences which obviously bodes well for the future given he’s now a Grade One winner at this discipline.

Stablemate Zanahiyr cannot claim that distinction yet but he remained very solid at the top of the antepost Triumph market following the weekend, which is perfectly understandable given he’d beaten Saint Sam by 14 lengths at Fairyhouse, before his comfortable Knight Frank Juvenile win over Busselton at Leopardstown on December 26.

Zanahiyr, a big, powerful son of Nathaniel who will surely stay further than the bare minimum over hurdles as time goes by, looks a bit of a natural and it seems Elliott, as well as jockey Jack Kennedy, prefers him to Quilixios with the Friday of Cheltenham in mind.

Even if you concur it doesn’t necessarily make him a great bet and at a best-priced 11/4 (as short as 2/1 in places) we can look elsewhere, especially when you consider there hasn’t been much cross-over this season in terms of the Irish and British-trained juveniles due to the various travel restrictions in place.

Elliott managed to send Duffle Coat for the Triumph Trial at Cheltenham’s November meeting and the gutsy, little grey duly went and won, beating subsequent Grade One Coral Finale Juvenile Hurdle winner Adagio by four and a quarter lengths.

So while Elliott stated he was disappointed to have been unable to send Quilixios to Chepstow for that race, he’ll have been fairly pleased with the outcome anyway, and it’s evidently clear he has a very good handle on the form in this division in general.

However, there is one strand he nor anyone else can fully quantify just yet, and that’s the hurdling debut success of Alan King’s TRITONIC at Ascot on January 23. And, given he’s a general 12/1 shot, there is potentially some mileage in backing him for Cheltenham before it becomes a lot clearer.

Further evidence could emerge as soon as Monday with narrow Ascot runner-up Casa Loupi entered to run in a novices’ event at Plumpton. Victory for Gary Moore’s horse there would give Tritonic a timely boost ahead of his proposed next outing at Kempton in a couple of weeks’ time, but it’s already not hard to put a positive spin on the form.

The Ascot race looked a typically strong renewal (has been won by Grandouet, Balder Succes, Top Notch and Goshen in the past 10 years) and Tritonic showed a glimpse of his class by eventually overhauling Casa Loupi close home, though he ultimately looked pretty good value for the win. There were 18 lengths and 15 lengths back to the third and fourth – the 87-rated and 83-rated Flat recruits Vulcan and Punctuation respectively – for good measure.

Tritonic himself was really smart on the level, including a 2019 victory in the Haynes, Hanson & Clark Conditions Stakes at Newbury, and he went on to post some really creditable three-year-old efforts against the likes of Highland Chief at Royal Ascot, Subjectivist at Hamilton and Emissary at Yarmouth.

The latter of those three seconds came in handicap company off a mark of 99 so we’re dealing with a high-class code-switcher here and one who evidently has a serious change of gear.

Few trainers have better records at converting such types into top-class juvenile hurdles than King, and it’ll be interesting to note at which race he aims Tritonic, given Balder Succes – his 2012 winner of the same Ascot race in January – went on to win a novice event against older rivals back at the Berkshire track the following month.

So while the Adonis Juvenile Hurdle might seem the most logical next step for one of his age group, King has also raised the possibility of a shot at the Grade Two Sky Bet Dovecote Novices’ Hurdle, which he’s won in the past with four-year-olds Trenchant and Grumeti, the latter of which went on to be third in the Triumph as 5/1 favourite.

It’s admittedly very hard to see Tritonic becoming the new market leader, but if he goes and posts a big number in his Kempton trial – no matter which race – then he’ll look the best of the Brits going into Cheltenham and could definitely put pressure on Quilixios as second-favourite behind the much-vaunted Zanahiyr.

Published at 1530 GMT on 10/02/21