Cheltenham Festival Day 2 – Queen Mother Champion Chase Preview – Luke Elder from Sky Sports Racing.
Luke Elder from Sky Sports Racing taking you through the 2nd day of the Cheltenham Festival and in particular the feature on the day which is the Queen Mother Champion Chase.
2 miles the trip here in this Grade 1 contest, and El Fabiolo looks to progress from winning Arkle last year when he beat Jonbon into winning the Champion Chase possibly beating Jonbon once again. They're the 1-2 in the market. I think El Fabiolo has just gone from strength to strength. At 12 months ago, I sat here saying how Jonbon would beat El Fabiolo in the Arkle that didn’t happen!
Jonbon’s had his issues since then, he made a bad mistake, obviously at the top of the hill last time around that was here at Cheltenham. That was in the rearranged Clarence House which should have been ran at Ascot, but we missed out on the clash between the big two that day. El Fabiolo, he's looked very good in two runs over in Ireland so far this season.
Probably even better, at Leopardstown last time around, when in Grade One company Dino Blue was back in second, she's gonna go for the Mares Chase this week and she'll be a short, priced favourite. That form looks pretty strong to me. I don't see any reason why El Fabiolo would get beaten by Jonbon.
I also think Jonbon will be a better horse when he goes up in trip to 2 1/2 miles. That looks to be his calling for the Henderson team. Edwardstone, I thought looked brilliant last time around over at Newbury. But is Edwardstone really gonna be lowering the colours of the main two in the market here? I don't really think that will be the case.
He might be looking more towards Aintree and Sandown for his Grade One this season and Captain Guinness was second in this race 12 months ago. Look, he's a consistent horse again. We talk about placepots, he might be the sort of horse to throw into a placepot just to give you a bit of a chance of getting a big price to runner through.
Well, the others I don't really see many of them getting involved. Boot Hill has decided to put a few jumping blemishes into his rounds. He was fairly safe before that, but he can't be trusted at the moment. I think this is a boring one El Fabiolo to take out The Champion Chase.