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Bristol De Mai and Daryl Jacob clear the final fence to win the Peter Marsh Chase by 22 lengths
Bristol De Mai and Daryl Jacob clear the final fence to win the Peter Marsh Chase by 22 lengths. Photograph: Andy Watts/racingfotos/Rex/Shutterstock
Bristol De Mai and Daryl Jacob clear the final fence to win the Peter Marsh Chase by 22 lengths. Photograph: Andy Watts/racingfotos/Rex/Shutterstock

Bristol De Mai shines in Haydock’s Peter Marsh Chase while Alary flops

This article is more than 7 years old
Grey cut from 66-1 to as short as 14-1 for Cheltenham Gold Cup
The New One gives Nigel Twiston Davies a big Haydock double

All eyes were on Alary, a dark horse for the Gold Cup, as the field set off for the Peter Marsh Chase here on Saturday but it was a striking grey who led the field home and established his own case for jumping’s most prestigious race. Bristol De Mai, a 66-1 chance for the Gold Cup at the start of the day, is now as short as 14-1 after a flawless display of galloping and jumping which left his field strung out behind him down the long Haydock straight.

Alary, one of the best chasers in France, was bought at considerable expense by Alan Potts, his new owner, after running second in the French equivalent of the King George VI Chase in November. Potts signed a six-figure cheque with a tilt at the Gold Cup in mind, but the Colin Tizzard-trained gelding was beaten with three fences still to jump, having made a couple of clumsy jumping errors earlier on in the race. He did not travel at any stage like a horse who might defy top weight and a British handicap rating of 162.

Bristol De Mai, on the other hand, could not have moved or jumped more fluently, and eased clear under Daryl Jacob from halfway down the straight, showing no signs of fatigue on the sticky ground. He ran in the two-and-a-half mile JLT Novice Chase at Cheltenham last season and is also entered in this year’s Ryanair Chase at the same trip, but this performance suggests that the Gold Cup is now a realistic target.

“You get worried when the last fence looms, but he was as brilliant at the last as he was at all the others,” Nigel Twiston-Davies, the winning trainer, said. “In the early days, he was very buzzy and he used to go flat out everywhere, but now he’s settled and you can put him anywhere you want in a race.

“Whether we’re quite the class of Thistlecrack [the Gold Cup favourite], we’ll have to see, but we’ll be going for one of them. I’d be leaning towards the Gold Cup because today was three miles in heavy ground, so it looks like he’s a stayer now, but it will be up to the owners.

“He’s a year older and hopefully he’s improved and strengthened. That was his best performance for us, his jumping was just superb all the way round.

“You mustn’t get your head turned [by a horse like Alary]. The fences are different, and when I’ve had horses from Ireland and France, they take time to acclimatise.”

It was a fine afternoon for Twiston-Davies, who completed a double after The New One’s hard-fought success in the card’s Champion Hurdle Trial, his third win in the race. He remains a 25-1 outsider for the Champion Hurdle itself, but there will be few more determined runners in the field if Twiston-Davies’s nine-year-old goes to post on 14 March.

L’Ami Serge, as is becoming a habit, looked like the best horse in the race for much of the contest but Jacob could not persuade him to put his head in front as he fought out a three-way finish with Clyne and The New One.

“He’s very courageous and brave,” Twiston Davies said. “At the moment, it will be the Champion Hurdle, I think. Eight lengths is the furthest he’s ever been beaten in a Champion Hurdle, we might be also-rans again but it’s worth another go, I’d have thought.

“I don’t think he really stays, that’s the problem [with running in the three-mile Stayers’ Hurdle]. He got outstayed by Yanworth [in the Christmas Hurdle] at Kempton. But he won’t run again until Cheltenham, so we can lie back and think about it.”

Aidan Coleman, who rode Alary, was mystified by the seven-year-old’s lacklustre performance. “I haven’t got a clue what happened,” Coleman said. “He was going fine until we got halfway down the back for the second time.”

Neon Wolf emerged as a strong contender for one of the Festival’s novice hurdles with a powerful display in the SkyBet Supreme Trial, accelerating nine lengths clear at the line to win in an impressive time given the conditions.

Harry Fry’s novice was making only his second start over timber. He had been backed relentlessly throughout the day to start at odds-on, and is now top-priced at around 14-1 for both the Supreme Novice Hurdle and the Neptune Novice Hurdle.

“It was breathtaking,” Fry, who watched the race at home, said. “We went there hoping the race would tell us what we should do for the rest of the season – we have lots to think about and dream about.

“I think someone said that he was 20 seconds quicker from the third-last than the runners in the handicap hurdle, and the time was quicker than The New One’s as well. He’s seriously exciting, and we’ll consider the races at Cheltenham and then make up our minds whether we need to run again if we are going there.”

In Ireland, the 2014 Champion Hurdle winner Jezki returned from nearly two years off the track with a one-and-three-quarter length success at Navan, and moved immediately towards the front of the betting for the Stayers’ Hurdle at Cheltenham in March.

“He was very settled there and was really, really good,” Jessica Harrington, the nine-year-old’s trainer, said. “He could still do a job over two miles but we know he stays three, so we have options.”

Jezki is now top-priced at 8-1 third-favourite for the Stayers’ Hurdle, and 25-1 to bridge a three-year gap and reclaim the two-mile crown in the Champion Hurdle.

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