Cross Country Chase

Tiger Roll 

With retirement being mooted after this race, it will be an emotional swansong for Tiger Roll, as he bids to emulate record-breaking Quevega with six Cheltenham Festival victories.

The Cross Country is a conditions race, so favours the classier types, and horses with experience around the fences are at a huge advantage. 

Tiger Roll is getting long in the tooth at the age of 12, and will naturally be on the decline, but has won this on three previous occasions, including last year by 18 lengths on the bridle, and his superiority over the field will allow him some deterioration and still bolt up!

History awaits Tiger Roll, and the heavens have been kind, as the forecast heavy bands of rain have not materialised, and with dry days ahead he will get his beloved fast ground.

It all points to Tiger Roll victory and at 7/4 I see him as my NAP of the day.

Coral Cup

Camprond

With 26 runners in the field, this is the hardest handicap to crack, and you need a horse well ahead of the handicapper, and plenty of luck to navigate a safe passage around the tight Old Course.

I put up Camprond ante-post (Non-Runner No Bet) for the Martin Pipe handicap hurdle, but connections have chosen to come here instead, and he looks JP McManus’ first string with Aiden Coleman jocked up.

This is no surprise as Camprond was a close fourth in the Greatwood Hurdle, the hottest two-mile handicap of the season, which has seen second-placed Adagio progress to be a live Champion Hurdle contender, fifth place Tritonic win a Grade 3 handicap, sixth place Fame and Glory take the Betfair Hurdle and seventh place Botox Has the Grade 2 National Spirit. 

Camprond is bred for further and was staying on strongly, so stepping up to the Coral Cup trip looks an ideal option.

We haven’t seen Camprond since the Greatwood in November, but that’s no surprise as he is owned by the legendary JP McManus who loves getting winners at the Festival, so his handicap mark has been protected ever since.

Grand Annual

Global Citizen

We already have 33/1 ante-post pick Dancing On My Own running for us who is now a 14/1 shot, but there is another lurker in the shape of Global Citizen that cannot go unbacked at juicy odds of 50/1.

Global Citizen is now 10 years old so is no spring chicken, but he remains lightly raced with just 16 career starts. Croco Bay won this recently as a 12-year-old, so age isn’t a barrier to success.

With just five career chases he is nicely unexposed and boasts the best form in this field with a fourth place in the 2020 Arkle. He postmarked 150 that day but was badly hampered by a faller, losing at least five lengths, so this performance can be considerably upgraded.

He had a season in the doldrums when his breathing was troubling him and was badly out of form being pulled up three times on the trot after reverting to hurdles. This coincided with his trainer, Ben Pauling, being badly out of form, but this year has been a different story.

Global Citizen had wind surgery again in December 2021 and this seems to have done the trick as he has returned to form with two promising runs over hurdles in Graded races, chasing home Champion Hurdle hope Tommy’s Oscar, and finishing third to Goshen.

Ben Pauling was noted saying Global Citizen had turned a corner and was showing all his old zest which is borne out by his two latest postmarks of 143 and 147.

Those performances make him an interesting contender here now he enters a handicap off a mark of just 136. He will only have to run to around 145 to be in the mix here, so at 50/1 he looks a huge each-way play.