*** GRAND ANNUAL CHASE ***

Go get em Ferdy!!!

So that's 2 ante-post bets in the handicaps (Hold Fast and Roudoudouville) both ruled out today and the weights aren't even out yet

kid cassidy, bellvano, when are the weights out, tomorrow?

Next wednesday I think.

Yep out on the 29th

thanks for that...

Looks like Toubab has been nicely plotted up for this. Ruby appeared to do a super job protecting his mark today.

Last race of the festival


1st impressions......Astracad

For the life of me I can't imagine Cheltenham playing to Toubab's strengths

Just to add to that, it looks like a very tradeable price at the moment, can see him being a well backed fav on the day, just don't think that price that he goes off will represent his chance given the course

He was going quite well there in his first chase (in October) but stopped like he was undercooked (as a few of Nicholl's were at that time). Sandown is also a reasonalbly good guide to whether novices will perform at Cheltenham. Though I imagine he'll be short enough for the race and he might be a few pounds too highly weighted.

thedemps 23 Feb 12 20:36
So that's 2 ante-post bets in the handicaps (Hold Fast and Roudoudouville) both ruled out today and the weights aren't even out yet.

WHAT WAS THE NEWS ON HOLD FAST ?????

NICKY's (HENDERSON) for the 5.15 Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Chase (Grade 3)

Giorgio Quercus (FR)
French Opera (GB)
Eradicate (IRE)
Bellvano (GER)
Anquetta (IRE)
Kid Cassidy (IRE)
Tanks For That (IRE)

Astracad (10) , Kid Cassidy (12) , Toubab (12) , Kumbeshwar (14) , Shot From The Hip (14) , De Boitron (16) , Edgardo Sol (16) , Oiseau de Nuit (16) , Salut Flo (16) , Slieveardagh (16) , Tanks For That (16) , Anquetta (20) , Bellvano (20) , Eradicate (20) , Falcon Island (20) , French Opera (20) , Giorgio Quercus (20) , Idarah (20) , Notus De La Tour (20) , Quicuyo (20)  - Others  20 or more

THINK I'LL HAVE A CUT OFF "THE KID" (come on McCoy) before the weight tomara.

The closing race of the Festival.
It has not been a bad race for punters recently with the majority of the winners coming from the top of the market. 

Below we take a look at the trends for the past 10 renewals pior to 2011.
DON'T know ANYONE who had last years winner - C.L.Tizzard's Oiseau de Nuit 10-13 (Mr Terry Warner) SP 40to1 !

Age (Win-Place-Runners)
5yo: 1-3-6
6yo: 1-4-26
7yo: 3-5-36
8yo: 1-10-50
9yo: 3-5-37
10yo: 1-2-29
11yo+: 0-1-16
The ages of winners have been fairly evenly spread out. 5 year olds have done well in this though from very few runners, 4 of 6 have made the frame.

Weight (Win-Place-Runners)
Horses carrying 10-12 or more: 0-12-57
Horses carrying 10-11 or less: 10-18-143
10 of 10 winners carried 10-11 or less and so are heavily favoured.
Top Weight: 32PU9FF4P2 (0-4-10)

Official Ratings
Horses rated 135 or higher: 1-17-104
Horses rated 134 or lower: 9-13-96
If you exclude horses running from 5lbs or more out of the handicap then the record of horses officially rated 134 or lower is 9-11-69.

Recent/Past Form
9 of 10 winners finished in first 3 on their last completed chase start (exception unplaced in a grade 2)
9 of 10 winners had run 1 to 5 times since August
9 of 10 winners had run in past 45 days
10 of 10 winners had run in no more than 12 chases
10 of 10 winners had run in 7 or fewer handicap chases (4 were running in their first h'cap chase)
7 of 10 winners had yet to win a handicap chase (2 of the 3 others had won just 1)
7 of 10 winners had finished in the first 3 in a grade chase (2 of 3 exceptions had yet to run in a graded chase)
6 of 10 winners had won at Cheltenham (2 others had been placed)
7 of 10 winners had previously run at the Cheltenham Festival
From a combined 34 prior outings that season the 10 winners had finished outside the first 3 just 7 times (4 of which were falls).


Other Races
Previous Year's winner (Pigeon Island): P0045 (0-1-5)
3 of last 5 winners had previously run in the Grand Annual, finishing 6F2
2 of last 4 winners finished 3rd in the Ascot Carey Group handicap chase
2 of 10 winners (last 2) ran in Kleinwort Benson Nov Chase, finishing 4F

Trainers
Paul Nicholls (2-3-19) and Arthur Moore (2-1-7) have both won 2 of the last 10 runnings of this race.
Nicky Henderson (1-5-19) won the race in 2006 and trained the runner-up in 2008 & 2010 and the third in 2009. The race is named after his father and he will certainly want to win it again.
Alan King (1-1-3) and Nigel Twiston-Davies (1-1-6) have supplied the last 2 winners of this.
Henry Daly (1-0-5) is the only other trainer with an entrant to have won the race since 2000. Philip Hobbs (0-2-10) has gained 2 places from 10 runners.

Irish trained runners (3-4-35) have won 3 of the last 10 runnings of the race from 17.5% of the total runners. 3 of the last 4 Irish trained winners had run in a hurdle on their previous start.

Price
7 of 10 winners were priced 8/1 or below.
8 of 10 winners came from the first 5 in the betting,
Clearly this is a race where you should be sticking with the market principals with 19 of 40 places being filled by horses priced 10/1 or lower.

Favourites (3-2-10) have won 3 of the last 10 renewals of this race, giving a level stakes profit of 5.00.

Summary:
Based on the trends from the past 10 years you are looking for a horse:

Aged 9 or younger (5yos especially)
Carrying 10-11 or less
Officially rated 134 or lower
Finished in first 3 in last completed chase
Had last outing in the past 45 days
Run in 12 or fewer chases
Run in 7 or fewer handicap chase and won no more than 1
Won or placed at Cheltenham
Trained by P Nicholls, A Moore, A King or N Henderson
Trained in Ireland
Priced 8/1 or below
TKS Racecaller

weight stats are wrong, last year's winner 10st12+

Below we take a look at the trends for the past 10 renewals *PRIOR to 2011.

theives I think the summary is not 100% as odn was rated above 134 and challenged many stats last year.

Apologies CMIYC, wish I'd read the start more closely then I wouldn't have wasted my time reading the rest.

up to date age stats;
5yo 1-3-5
6yo 1-4-26
7yo 2-6-41
8yo 1-9-54
9yo 4-4-39
10yo 1-2-26
11yo 0-2-15

if i recall last year's winner did hit the stats as had claimer on board which brought it within the weight stat

No, was set 11st 6 and claim brought down to 10st 13

FYI

Oiseau de Nuit (9yo)(FR) 10-13 (Mr Terry Warner) SP 40/1 C L Tizzard S Clements(7)

Biggest rick in this race is Alan King's failure to enter the back-to-form Oh Crick imo.

Saludos opened his account for the season when justifying favouritism in the Bet On Your Mobile With ****.com Chase at Thurles but is unlikely to tackle the Grand Annual at the Cheltenham Festival unless there is an ease in the ground.
“He needs a lot of rain to run in the Grand Annual but he’s fairly handicapped. If he got yielding ground he’d probably take his chance.

this is the race i wanted to back oh crick in. was waiting for him to win this year, missed him lto

I have backed Eradicate today at 20/1 VC NRNB.His chase mark of 140 is 17lbs lower than his hurdle mark of 157.He won the Swinton Hurdle by 13l off a mark of 141,and his chase mark has been achieved by racing in small field novice chases which would not play to his strengths.Granted the usual good/fast ground and big field/strong pace on the day he will have optimum conditions.
I thought he jumped fine when winning last time out at Southwell,and providing his jumping holds up in the frentic atmosphere of a festival race,I think he will go close.Of course it is a race Henderson would love to win.

any guesses who will be topweight?

If french opera doesnt run, would think nicholls would run woolcombe folly (4lb weight rise) to assist toubab

anyone got news of running plans for Renard and Rileyev from Venetia Williams?

OR 129-134

I had Oiseau De Nuit last year along with the Pipe that came 3rd. I'll be doing Oiseau De Nuit again this year as long as Clements is onboard, I don't want Joe Tizzard onboard.

GRAND ANNUAL comments from the preview nights.........

Joe Tizzard - Falcon Island & Oiseau De Nuit 2 runners. S Clements to ride ODN to get weight down again.

Paul Nicholls - Toubab not fully tuned up last time and will run well on better ground.

Ted Walsh jr pillow talk alert. The horse that Nina won on last weekend at Naas. Paul Cashman’s Idarah. Connections are confident. I see it’s in the Grand Annual on the Friday.

French Opera should be top weight as Nicky intends to run with Jerry McGrath taking off 5lb

18 of the last 19 winners were OR between 123 & 145.

The Paul Cashman trained Idarah, under Nina Carberry, overcame a four months absence to win a fiercely fought Paddy Power Last Man Standing Handicap Hurdle at Naas today.
The almost white gelding, and Carberry, showed great determination to fend off the challenges of Rocky Wednesday, Sportsmaster and Rory Anna from the final flight to score a 14/1 upset.

Afterwards Cashman said “that was a bit unexpected! I thought he’d need the run badly.
“He schooled at Fairyhouse last Thursday and he went great and did a nice bit of work during the week but it is four months since he has run. However, with the older horses it doesn’t take as much to get them fit.

““He hates that bad ground and hopefully he’ll get nicer ground at Cheltenham. He’s in a few races there but we’ll be leaning towards the Grand Annual Chase - Liam (Mulryan, owner) has Plan A in the County Hurdle. It’s great for Liam, he’s a great client in the stud (Rathbarry) end and sends us plenty of mares.”
Stan James Bookmakers subsequently cut Idarah to 20/1 (from 33s) for the Grand Annual Chase.

O'Grady said “Slieveardagh shouldn't really have been running against Donnas Palm (the Noel Meade trained runner-up) handicap-wise but I thought Donnas Palm had a very hard race at Navan and he is probably better at Navan than he is here.

“My horse is better on that ground but I don't know where I'll go from here. He has a preference for going left handed, which doesn't help with Punchestown and Fairyhouse and while he is in the Grand Annual at Cheltenham, I doubt he'll go there.
PP subsequently cut Slieveardagh to 12/1 (from 16s) for the Grand Annual Chase.

ORISH have won the race 4 times in the last 12 years.

Just asked in another thread if any update on Slieveardagh?  Since those comments he has left him in the race so must be considering it?

Delighted to see Slieveardagh is running, very sweet on his chances with 10st 5.  His close 2nd to First Lieutenant giving 3lbs looks pretty decent after the RSA and ran well enough behind Bog warrior before beating Donnas Palm on much more suitable ground at Leopardstown.  Trip and ground should suit perfectly.

Cornas could be the one to turn the stats upside down. He has definate quality and will act on the ground. There are question marks over a lot of the principles in the betting on decent ground. This will be run at a good clip and with him being a hold up horse he may just swoop late as he has a turn of foot. Don't understand the jockey booking though, an amateur claiming 5lbs who has only ever ridden one horse for the stable before. There are plenty of good jocks at the track that have ridden many horses for the trainer before so that doesn't add up for me. Obviously he's vulnerable to a low weighted novice but the form of the novices looks pretty mediocre and his weight is kept to a good racing weight by Hendersons top weight. Could be a decent bet at big odds.

Sorry I'm sure this has already been said but I haven't read every post.

Surely Henderson has given Kid Cassidy an amazing chance here. French Opera is there to allow it co carry a much lower weight and squeeze the bottom of the field a little. For me this revolves around Kumbeshwar and Kid Cassidy and there is very little between them on there last run. However Kumbeshwar is now 2lbs better off and in first time blinkers, at the odds it may be the better value.

Given that Henderson will be wanting to win this particular race and the horse has McManus plot written all over it I have still backed Kid Cassidy and Kumbeshwar. I think KC could end up going off at a stupid price (sub 4/1).

One thing that French Opera does do is allow last years winner Oiseau De Nuit in carrying a much handier 11-2lbs and I think this is not to be under estimated either. It won this really well last year and could spring a surprise a few.

I have backed all three to different stakes. KC at 6/1 elsewhere and Kumbeshwar @18.5 and Oiseau De Nuit @24 on here.