2022 Cheltenham Festival antepost tips
1pt win Alaphilippe in Pertemps Final Handicap Hurdle at 8/1 (Sky Bet, bet365, Betfred - NRNB)
As recent years have shown, going against the Irish – and in particular Gordon Elliott, who has won three of the last four renewals – in the Pertemps Network Final is a bold move, and once again there is a strong challenge making the trip across the Irish sea for this year’s renewal.
Sire du Berlais, a two-time winner of the race, has been talked up plenty on the Cheltenham preview evening circuit, and he does look a bona-fide ‘plot’ job for some of the shrewdest connections around. He can boast a Cheltenham Festival record of 4112 and he is just 4 lb higher than when successful in this race in 2020.
Sire du Berlais’ campaign is often worked around the Festival and he ran a career-best effort on Timeform ratings when runner-up to Flooring Porter in the Stayers’ Hurdle 12 months ago. Qualification for this year's Pertemps was obtained at Warwick in January and he will be primed for this given Elliott suggested at a recent stable tour that ‘it looks an open race to me based on the entries and he could be a class act in it.'
This may be true, and all of the Irish runners are sure to be popular, but there has to be a turning of the tide at some point, right?
From a personal point of view, when playing these competitive handicaps at Cheltenham, I’d rather side with horses who seemingly have their best days ahead of them, and for me the Fergal O’Brien-trained ALAPHILIPPE makes plenty of appeal.
A big, strong type who was a winner in points, he is very much in the mould of a chaser, but Alaphilippe unfortunately picked up an injury at the start of the season which has shelved those plans in the short term.
The main aim following that setback was to get him qualified for the Pertemps Final and he shaped very well on his return to action when finishing fifth at Warwick in a race won by Sporting John and also involved The Jam Man, Third Wind and Sire du Berlais, all of whom finished in front of him (replay below).
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That doesn’t tell the full story, though, as Alaphilippe raced more prominently than those rivals for the most part, and appeared to have them all in trouble turning into the straight – he traded as low as 2.04 in running on Betfair.
He was narrowly in front jumping the second-last and was arguably still going best approaching the final flight where he was joined by the eventual winner.
On landing, it was clear that the fuel tank of Alaphilippe was beginning to empty and, for all he lost plenty of ground on the run-in, he was by no means given a hard time. That was a most encouraging run on his return from 10 months off up against race-fit rivals and he looked like a well-handicapped horse for 95 per cent of the contest.
Alaphilippe was very progressive as a staying novice last season and, while all of his winning form has come on soft or heavy ground, he proved in the Albert Bartlett 12 months ago – which is run over the same course and distance as the Pertemps – that he handles ground with good in the description and I’m sure there will be no complaints over the forecast going next week, which looks like being good to soft.
Alaphilippe will meet Sporting John on 6 lb better terms and he is a strong-travelling type who will be well suited by being held up in a strongly-run race, which the Pertemps invariably is.
O’Brien continues to prove he is a very astute trainer and has purposely not run him since, explaining recently that he went to Martin Keighley’s carpet gallop on Monday for a day out just to put that extra edge on him.
Undoubtedly, this will be his toughest test to date, but he remains relatively unexposed, and this will be just his second start in a handicap. A lack of experience in big fields doesn’t concern me given how he goes through his races – it could even be liberating – and it would be fantastic if he could provide O’Brien with a much-deserved winner at the Festival (if he isn’t on the board already by Thursday), while also giving the British a first success in the Pertemps since Call The Cops won in 2015.
Published at 0950 GMT on 10/03/22
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