They put The Game Changer away over the Winter months as he needs proper good going. Looked good.

Re Blaklion, I was all over him for the Albert Bartlett last year, but he ran no sort of race and then was well beaten at Aintree.

I get the feeling that when he comes up against a really good one (like a NMH or MoT) then he won't be able to live with them (no disrespect to Seeyouatmidnight or Onenightinvienna), but they are no NHM or MoT.

I think he's a good G2 and G3 small field runner; his best performances over hurdles were in 5 or 6 runner races, as have his chase wins.  May be proved wrong, but I'd be surprised if he was good enough to win an RSA.

Fair comments Chief, and you may well be right. Mind you I think we could be in for a smallish RSA field.
I did have a bit of a think before pressing the button, but in the end I thought 16 was worth the risk, and if it came up on the soft side I would be pretty confident of a big run, I think hes interesting anyway, but probably has a better chance of upsetting the two favs on soft.

Hey giggsy - you'll be pleased to hear that Patrick Mullins thinks that NMH is too classy for anything in the Mullins stable thinks he's "a cut above"

Delsie, I think that is Patrick saying to Willie, don't run Black Herules in the RSA because NHM is better and I want to ride him in the 4 miler

also monksland jumped better against NMH - against O he made mistakes at the worst possible time 3 out, 2 out and the last - this put him on the back foot each time - for me if he had jumped as well against O as he did against NMH it would have been a close run thing yesterday

Interesting Mullins & co wouldn't want people to  run away from douvan for example, yet they would willingly send arguably their best RSA candidate to the 4 miler.

I don't want to knock No More Heroes, for all I know he could be the next Gold Cup winner and a cut above everything else out there. However one thing I'd like to raise for debate on here is having looked through his form book, will he really go on genuinely decent ground? I've had people say to me he will be fine on it, he could well be, I'm not saying he won't by any stretch, but at this stage I just struggle to see any proof that he does handle it that is all.

He was well beat at Punchestown and I'm certain he didn't give a true running of himself there, and I won't necessarily blame the better ground as he wasn't a hurdler. It's also entirely plausible that he was over the top from a 3m run in the soft ground at the festival. He was also well beat on yielding on another race last season up against Outlander, again plausible excuses, inadequate trip etc.  He has ran on yielding at the start of this season, where he beat 120 horses, so I can't have that as evidence where it will suit him against the cream at the festival. All his other runs have been on soft or heavy, I could well be way off the mark and making something out of nothing, but I'm just not convinced at this moment in time.

SF, you're right to bring the ground issue up, and I'm a NMH backer.  Back in March 15, I started the 2016 Bet Thread, and I put "I think he'll be a monster in staying chases. Question over good ground would be a worry but if he does handle it, he'll be hard to beat imo."

That was almost a year ago and nothing I have seen since has addressed this.  I still think he'll be a monster in staying chases, but he has yet to answer the better ground question, because he hasn't had it over fences yet.  I'm hoping he will handle it, and I see no reason why he won't, but it is the biggest question mark he has imo.

last year not that year 1 you forgot

Haha, fair point that budd. Shows just how hard it is with certain connections.

The problem is that a lot of the top class horses are concentrated in just a small amount of stables so they have to split them to avoid running against each other. Sometimes this will mean they run over a trip that even the trainer thinks is not their ideal. A trainer with only a few horses up to Cheltenham standard will not have that problem and will be able to commit to a race a lot earlier.

Outlander will be in the jlt, dare I say this after simonsig but the bf markets rarely get it wrong.

Outlander raised 1lb for his win on Saturday to 150 (OR). Definitely should be JLT bound. imo.

Ground at Newbury is currently Heavy soft in places. Do you think John Jo will run MOT if it doesn't dry out?

Reynoldstown Chase a week on Saturday won in recent years by Albertas Run and O'Faolains Boy before RSA Wins

There's a 2 1/2m Graduation chase at Kempton on Friday he's entered for but I doubt that would be an ideal prep for the RSA.

Rocky Creek currently fav for the Denman Chase. They should have entered MOT after all.

Denman Chase is such a shocking race that they should get the now 16 years old Denman back from team chasing or whatever it is he's doing these days and let him run in it off 10 stone - he'd win with his head in his chest.

Two legends roger