With Cheltenham Gold Cup opposition to Galopin Des Champs melting away, Corbetts Cross could take an unorthodox route to steeplechasing’s Blue Riband when lining up at Ascot on Saturday.
The Grade One Ascot Chase’s slot just a few weeks from next month’s all-important festival means it has largely been a domestic affair over the years. Only Fakir D’oudairies in 2022 has successfully raided from Ireland.
However, with the festival clock ticking down, trainer Emmet Mullins has opted for an unconventional tack. Mark Walsh rode Fakir D’oudairies three years ago and is again back in the JP McManus colours on board Corbetts Cross.
Another Irish contender is Willie Mullins’s Blue Lord who will try to fill in a rare top-flight blank on the champion trainer’s CV. But much of the intrigue surrounds the other Mullins runner taking on last year’s one-two, Pic D’orhy and L’Homme Presse.
If the latter is also in the Gold Cup picture, the race once again looks like being Pic D’orhy’s ‘Derby’. In terms of course, distance and priority, these look to be his optimum circumstances as trainer Paul Nicholls bids to bridge a one-year gap at the top level.
The temptation for Pic D’orhy fans will be to categorise Corbetts Cross as just a stayer judged by his National Hunt Chase victory at Cheltenham last season. That was over almost a mile further than the Ascot test.
However, it could be costly to write Corbetts Cross off as some one-dimensional plodder. The extravagant way he travelled through the Cheltenham race meant the stamina he showed looked even more impressive. But this is also a Grade Two hurdles winner over less than two miles.
It is that mix of talents that could result in Corbetts Cross emerging as a meaningful threat to ‘Galopin’ next month. He is already a 12-1 shot in Gold Cup betting. Mullins, chasing a first cross-channel Grade One, reports he is increasingly pleased with the horse’s progress towards Cheltenham.
“He was a bit disappointing in the King George, but we’ve regrouped and are ready to go again. The forecast ground might put a bit more pressure on his jumping for a second-season novice, but if he can jump at the pace, he should cope with the drop in trip.
“If we could get a repeat of his Aintree run third to Gerri Colombe last season] I don’t think we’ll be far away and he seems fit and well,” he said.
That may well be more than enough to cope with opposition topped by Pic D’orhy, whose trainer has conceded: “He’s not your top Grade One horse who’s going to win a Ryanair, but he’s a very smart horse who can win these sort of races by placing him right.”
Corbetts Cross hasn’t fired in two starts so far this season but the potential for him to be a top Grade One horse remains.
Elsewhere, there are a pair of six-figure Grand National Trials on both sides of the Irish Sea this weekend.
Last year’s winner Yeah Man (Gavin Cromwell) and Where It All Began from Gordon Elliott’s yard line up at Haydock on Saturday for their Trial contest where Grade One winner Royale Pagaille tops the weights.
Elliott has won five of the last six renewals of Sunday’s three-and-a-half-mile National Trial at Punchestown, where Cromwell’s Thyestes runner-up Velvet Elvis is topweight.
MacDermott lost his rider at the start of the Thyestes and last season’s Scottish National hero is one of a Willie Mullins trio. Bushmans Pass returned from a near one-year absence to finish fifth in the Thyestes and might exploit an attractive racing weight on ultra-testing conditions.
