Will these Festival fancies cope with Cheltenham?

Course form is hugely important at Cheltenham and it's a serious omission from the CVs of these high-profile runners

When Cheltenham's gatemen pushed the last drunken punter off the premises and rolled him down the street on Saturday night, it was the last bit of action to be seen at the great racecourse before 15 March, day one of the Festival. Until then, there will be no more racing at Prestbury Park, no more chances for any of the contenders to have a spin round, to get precious experience of the unique undulations.

Course form matters at Cheltenham, the most challenging jumps track in the country, with the arguable exception of the Grand National course. Year after year, races at the Festival fall to horses who have won at the track before, or who have at least gone close at previous Festivals.

Some horses seem to loathe the place, regularly proving unable to show anything like their best form there. This is why, if a particular beast has run just once or twice there without success, suspicion is the only sensible response.

There will be quite a few runners with a lot to prove on that score next month. Here's my list of the five most interesting cases, all of them high in the betting lists for major races.

1) Finian's Rainbow
The 9-2 favourite for the Arkle Trophy, Finian's Rainbow has raced at Cheltenham only once, when fifth behind Peddlers Cross in the Neptune Novice Hurdle at last year's Festival. He travelled well to two-out but found less than his rivals from that point and was beaten six and three-quarter lengths.

Still, the bare form stands up well. There was certainly no shame in trailing Peddlers Cross (now 11-2 for the Champion Hurdle) or Rite Of Passage, who then won the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot. Those behind Finian's Rainbow included The Giant Bolster, a winner over fences at Cheltenham on Saturday, and Ghizao, now second-favourite for the Arkle, who was 50 lengths further back.

Stamina should not be such an issue this time, as the Arkle is run over two miles. But it will still be necessary for any horse to come up that famous hill with some purpose in order to win and it would be nice to have seen Finian's Rainbow do that just once before the big day.

Instead, his two outings over fences have been ungraded contests at Newbury, where he beat just two rivals on each occasion. He was long odds-on to win those races and hacked up under no pressure whatever. What exactly has he proved?

Ghizao, meanwhile, has left his hurdles form behind, winning a Grade Two over these fences in November. We know he can win here. Can Finian's?

2) Hurricane Fly
The good news is that Hurricane Fly is still in one piece, almost a fortnight after his most recent outing, so there is good reason to hope that we will at last see this fragile beast at Cheltenham. He is the 5-1 second-favourite for the Champion Hurdle.

Now seven, he has raced only in France (where he beat Literato and Spirit One in a Listed race at Saint-Cloud) and Ireland, where he is based with Willie Mullins and has won four Grade Ones on the bounce. Since June 2008 he has raced on only three different tracks: Leopardstown, Fairyhouse and Punchestown.

Will he cope with the very different demands of Cheltenham? We can have no idea until he shows up. Meanwhile, his three main rivals, Binocular, Menorah and Peddlers Cross, have winning experience at the Festival. Hurricane Fly has a lot more to prove.

3) Golden Silver
Since April Golden Silver's form figures are an impressive 1121211. The only horse to have beaten him in that time has been Big Zeb, the reigning champion two-mile chaser, and Golden Silver finally got revenge on him at Punchestown on Sunday.

Now he's a top price of 12-1 for the Champion Chase and is available at the same odds for the Ryanair, with Mullins leaning towards the longer race but still undecided. There will be no point in his agonising over that choice, however, if Golden Silver cannot do better than on his two previous visits.

Now nine, the horse turned up at Cheltenham for the past two Festivals, being beaten by 40 lengths in Forpadydeplaster's Arkle and 35 lengths in Big Zeb's Champion Chase. He ran similar races both times, racing prominently until tiring from around the third-last.

Both races were over two miles and it was interesting to hear Mullins say, at the weekend, that he felt the strong early pace had counted against his runner. Golden Silver needs time to warm to his races, the trainer opined. Granted the extra five furlongs of the Ryanair, he could do something similar to what he achieved at Punchestown, settling out the back before finishing strongly to mow down the leaders.

But a horse who has been so comprehensively beaten on his two previous visits is hard to back. It may be that the going at Cheltenham is usually faster than he likes, or it may be the wrong way round; his past five wins have been at right-handed tracks, his past three defeats at left-handed tracks.

4) Grandouet
Recent form, rather than Cheltenham form, seems to have shaped the betting market for the Triumph Hurdle. Grandouet is the 7-1 favourite after hacking up in ordinary juvenile hurdles at Newbury and Ascot, while Sam Winner is 12-1 after flopping in a Grade One at Chepstow, for which he was 8-13.

But the two have met, in a Grade Two at Cheltenham in November, when Sam Winner thumped Grandouet by 15 lengths. Admittedly, he was carrying 8lb less, but he would surely have won at level weights.

That was Grandouet's only race at Cheltenham. Sam Winner returned there the following month and won easily once more, albeit in a lesser race.

If you can forgive Sam Winner his Chepstow effort, perhaps because he was unsuited by the tacky, holding going, then he should surely be favourite. It could be argued that Grandouet has shown only slightly better form in beating up inferior rivals since then and he's done it on tracks that do not resemble Cheltenham. If course form is what counts, the betting market has got the Triumph all wrong.

5) Long Run
In no race at the Festival is the ability to cope well with Cheltenham more important than it is in the Gold Cup, which provides those lumbering chasers with a much greater test of their athleticism than anything they face during the rest of the year. But this season's race is full of horses who have yet to win over these fences.

Pride Of Dulcote is inexperienced, although he was a fine second in the Albert Bartlett over hurdles a couple of years ago. Diamond Harry also had good hurdles form but his jumping went to bits in last year's RSA Chase and that will be a major concern once more.

Pandorama's only race in Britain, the Hennessy in November, effectively ended at the second fence, which he met halfway up. Punchestowns has been beaten out of sight on both starts over fences at Cheltenham, in last year's RSA and in Saturday's Argento, having started favourite both times.

If you back any of those horses and they run poorly, you can't really pretend to be surprised. But what of Long Run? Now the 7-1 second-favourite behind only Imperial Commander, he has also been beaten on both visits to Cheltenham.

I'm inclined to forgive him for those. He was only five and having just his third run in Britain when third in last year's RSA. Given that he made five blunders serious enough to have been recorded in the Racing Post's in-running note, he did very well to finish as close as he did.

He stepped back in trip for his seasonal reappearance in the Paddy Power and again made mistakes before finishing third. The horses in front of him were hardly top quality but it was a handicap and he was carrying more weight. Allowing for the likelihood that he was taken out of his comfort zone by the strong early pace, it was another respectable effort.

Since then, he's improved on all his previous efforts to win the King George. In the context of the Gold Cup, the suspicious thing about that is that his previous best was also at Kempton, in the Feltham. Flat, right-handed Kempton is nothing like Cheltenham and it has always been dangerous to assume that horses who run well there can also do so at the Festival.

I think Long Run is the most likely winner in the Gold Cup field and I'm very happy about the 7-1. His main rivals (Kauto Star Denman, Imperial) are getting a bit old for this sort of caper and he probably has more raw ability than any other entrant.

Of course, he still has to jump round. If, instead, he hits every other fence and finishes tailed off, I'll have no one to blame but my sunny optimism that he'd get Cheltenham right at the third attempt.