Jonbon back in action in Cheltenham Shloer Chase on Friday

By Matt Brocklebank

Horse Racing

Mon November 11, 2024 · 2d ago

Matt Brocklebank is leading the unofficial Jonbon appreciation party ahead of the eight-year-old's seasonal debut at Cheltenham on Friday.

Many things in life start out simply being named after something to which they are very closely associated, or that preceded them.

Having recently gained the capacity to watch TV programmes via Disney+, I’ve caught up with what feels like quite an old episode of Welcome to Wrexham in which Rob Lee’s son is asked what he reckons he’d have to achieve before his former Newcastle United and England-capped father would actually be known as Elliott Lee's dad.

“Probably helping Wrexham gain promotion to the Premier League,” was his answer, and a perfectly reasonable one too considering The Town were still a Non-League side at the time of recording. Fair play to the man as he’s one of only two or three players still making the starting XI at the Racecourse Ground a couple of seasons on, with the Sky Bet Championship now looking a perfectly realistic target come next year.

Go on Rob Lee’s lad, we believe in you.

The equine world is similarly full of examples of certain individuals living in the shadow of others. I’ve always felt a bit sorry for The One Before Becher's at Aintree, although heaven forbid what might need to happen at that particular Grand National fence for it to be given a more specific title. Let’s not go there.

There are trainers and co-trainers all over the place currently struggling to make a name for themselves, while imagine the pressure that Ralph Beckett is under being in charge of a horse like Doha, the impeccably-bred Al Shaqab filly by Sea The Stars out of Treve.

Beckett has (unsurprisingly) excelled in winning two nice races this year with Doha, but in a game almost entirely made up of dreams - and big-money dreams at that - the majority of cases clearly do end in a degree of disappointment, which is probably what led to the thick air of cynicism surrounding the prospects of Douvan’s little brother after J P McManus went to £570,000 to purchase the gelding at the Goffs point-to-point sale four years ago, almost to the day.

This horse has bizarrely been called all sorts of names since that mega-move into the green and gold, from a waste of money, a fractious youngster, to complete flop, then nearly-horse, and almost everything else in between. But last season was arguably the first campaign in which he came close to being fully recognised for what he has become. And that’s a bloody good steeplechaser.

Quite how good is obviously open to a little bit of interpretation and Timeform and the Racing Post ratings scales both still have Douvan a touch superior to his younger sibling, to the tune of seven to ten pounds based on peak end-of-season figures.

But victory for the odds-on favourite in this Friday’s Shloer Chase would at least see him equal his brother's number of Rules race victories (15) - and he’ll have achieved it in one outing fewer. He’ll be level too on chase wins (10) and also total number of career Graded race wins.

At the age of eight and following only the one full campaign outside of novice company, Nicky Henderson’s representative could also be capable of finding another notch of improvement as he enters full maturity.

In a recent antepost preview, his biggest fan Sir AP McCoy asked the rhetorical question: “What on earth is there that can beat this horse in a Champion Chase?!”, which isn’t quite as outlandish as it first seems when you see what else there is in opposition over here in Britain, but it's not like there won’t be fierce competition sent into battle by Willie Mullins come the biggest meetings later on. El Fabiolo, a back-to-health Energumene and last year’s runaway Arkle winner Gaelic Warrior spring to mind, and they are all single-figure prices in the antepost lists for Cheltenham in March.

But as those who follow fellow Seven Barrows star Constitution Hill closely know all too well, competition is a pre-requisite in driving any horse's rating higher and it's desperately hoped we get at least a couple of unmissable clashes on the two-mile chasing scene this season.

Is it really out of the question that we end up with a Jack and Bobby Charlton, or Michael and Brian Laudrup, dynamic and the younger brother goes on to achieve that little bit more?

He missed the Queen Mother at the Festival this year on account of the stable’s wretched bad luck and general wellbeing, but Aintree and Sandown in April reminded us all of what we were missing at the big show, and this week undoubtedly sees the return of a heavyweight in the division.

With all-time form figures that read 11/11121/111211/11211, it’s surely time we appreciated his brilliance and remarkable consistency from the outset. It’s time for this son of Walk In The Park to step out and back into the spotlight.

Welcome back, the juggernaut that is Jonbon.

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