Cheltenham Gold Cup on horizon for Yorkshire racing star The Real Whacker

He is set to face five rivals in the Grade Two Paddy Power Cotswold Chase (1.50), over three miles and a furlong, ahead of a possible tilt at the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March.

The horse, trained by Patrick Neville out of Ann Duffield’s stables at Leyburn, won on his first three appearances at Prestbury Park – the highlight being his narrow success in the Grade One Brown Advisory Novices' Chase at last spring’s Festival.

Prior to that he had won the mallardjewellers.com Novices' Chase in November 2022 before following it up a few weeks later by landing the Dipper on New Year’s Day.

This season hasn’t been as straightforward as he was pulled up and later found to be lame on his seasonal reappearance in the Paddy Power Gold Cup Handicap Chase in November.

He went on to run in the Boxing Day showpiece Grade One – the Ladbrokes King George VI Chase, where he finished fourth of the six runners, but seemed to be doing his best work at the end of the three-mile test.

The Real Whacker and regular jockey Sam Twiston-Davies are vying for favouritism at the top of the ante-post market with Betfair Chase winner, Venetia Williams’ Royal Pagaille and the hat-trick seeking Stay Away Fay, who won the Betfair Esher Novices' Chase at Sandown last time out for Paul Nicholls and jockey Harry Cobden.

Dual Grand National-winning trainer Lucinda Russell sends last year’s winner and former Wetherby William Hill Towton Novices' Chase scorer, Ahoy Senor, south from Scotland.

Jamie Snowden’s Coral Gold Cup winner Datsalrightgino and the Willie Mullins-trained Irish raider Capodanno complete the line-up.

Nicholls looks set to follow the same path to the Festival with Stay Away Fay as Neville did with the Real Whacker last year.

Like the eight-year-old Yorkshire gelding, he holds an entry for this year’s National Hunt blue riband, but the Ditcheat handler says his charge will probably line up in the Brown Advisory instead.

He said: “I’ve given him an entry in the National Hunt Chase and Gold Cup, but I would say he would be one for the Brown Advisory at the Festival after this.”

Nicholls has saddled five previous winners of the recognised Cheltenham Gold Cup trial, with See More Business triumphing in 1998 and 2001 before the subsequent victories of Taranis in 2010, Neptune Collonges in 2011 and Frodon in 2019.

He says this is the ideal test for the seven-year-old gelding: “He has got to go somewhere before the Cheltenham Festival and this gives him more time than if he goes to the Reynoldstown (Novices’ Chase) at Ascot and has a hard race.

He said: “This race has always been on my mind for him. For a horse like him it is the perfect race. He might have to take on some better ones, but apart from Royale Pagaille there are no real Gold Cup horses in there.

“He is fit, stays well and he is in good order and we think he will run a nice race.”

Meanwhile, Bob Olinger could bid to continue his resurgence in the Chanelle Pharma Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown on Sunday week.

The nine-year-old was considered one of the sport’s brightest potential stars after landing the 2021 Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, but there have been more than a few bumps in the road during the subsequent three years.

Henry de Bromhead’s charge was fortunate to double his Festival tally in the following season’s Turners Novices’ Chase following the dramatic final fence exit of Galopin Des Champs and last term it looked as though his career was declining.

But he won the Navan’s Lismullen Hurdle and then the Relkeel Hurdle at Cheltenham last New Year’s Day and de Bromhead said: “I think we’re leaning towards the Irish Champion Hurdle, but nothing’s confirmed.”