{"id":195427,"date":"2019-02-27T08:13:31","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T07:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/?p=195427"},"modified":"2025-03-12T10:47:44","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T09:47:44","slug":"cheltenham-2019-gold-cup-favourites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/?p=195427","title":{"rendered":"Cheltenham 2019: Gold Cup Favourites"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cheltenham Festival 2019 is only weeks away and the meeting\u2019s showpiece, the Gold Cup, is shaping up nicely to be the most competitive in years. Last year\u2019s winner <em>Native Winner<\/em> isn\u2019t the bookies\u2019 favourite to make it back-to-back wins (a feat that last occurred in 2002-4 with <em>Best Mate<\/em>), with <em>Presenting Percy<\/em> the leader at this stage. So, without further ado, let\u2019s take a look at this year\u2019s leading contenders for the Cheltenham Gold Cup.<\/p>\n<p><u>Presenting Percy \u2013 3\/1<\/u><\/p>\n<p>The Irish front-runner will be looking to make it a hattrick of wins at Cheltenham Festival, with a first in the Gold Cup the main agenda. However, should <em>Presenting Percy<\/em> not race at Fairyhouse, he\u2019d become the first horse to ever be successful without turning out for any races this season. Owner Philip Reynolds and trainer Pat Kelly have denied there are any problems:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPresenting Percy is absolutely fine,\u201d said Reynolds.<\/p>\n<p>Continuing: \u201cI\u2019m not sure how many more opportunities Pat\u2019s going to have to have a horse go to the Gold Cup. I certainly doubt I\u2019m going to have many more. So, we just decided to be ultra, ultra-careful, that\u2019s all. Nothing wrong with the horse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><u>\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n<p><u>\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n<p><u>Clan des Obeaux \u2013 4\/1<\/u><\/p>\n<p>Trainer Paul Nicholls will be looking to make it a fifth success in the Gold Cup with this season\u2019s most-improved chaser,<em>Clan des Obeaux<\/em>. An impressive win in the King George VI Chase at Ascot cemented his claims for a win in next month\u2019s cup.<\/p>\n<p><u>Native River \u2013 5\/1<\/u><\/p>\n<p>Who could forget <em>Native River<\/em>\u2019s win in last year\u2019s Gold Cup? Him and <em>Might Bite <\/em>were head and shoulders above the rest of the field and made for an epic encounter in the closing minutes. The equine flu outbreak ensured <em>Native River <\/em>was unable to complete his pre-competition training; however, he didn\u2019t look too bad in the two run-outs at the end of last year.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/ytcropper.com\/embed\/5J5c6ed3d100dd5\/loop\/noautoplay\/\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><a href=\"\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">via ytCropper<\/a><\/p>\n<p><u>Kemboy \u2013 9\/1<\/u><\/p>\n<p>The odds of <em>Kemboy<\/em>continue to shorten and expect them to shorten further if Ruby Walsh decides to ride. The winner of his last four chases, <em>Kemboy<\/em>is in decent form and is one of Ireland\u2019s best offerings (barring the favourite, of course). However, Willie Mullins is looking to break his Cheltenham hoodoo as runner-up on six occasions, and he\u2019s certainly going big this year with no fewer than four horses in the race.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s Al Boum Photo, Invitation Only, Kemboy and Bellshill \u2014 and I\u2019ll probably run as many as I can. Those four can run there, anyway,\u201d Mullins said.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018It would be nice to win the Gold Cup and we have as good a chance this year as any. You can make cases for them all\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><u>Bellshill \u2013 10\/1<\/u><\/p>\n<p><em>Bellshill <\/em>won the Irish Gold Cup earlier this month, beating favourite <em>Road to Respect<\/em> and shouldn\u2019t be underestimated. This form has shortened his odds from the 20s and put the horse ahead of his Irish Gold Cup rival, while strengthening Willie Mullins\u2019 strong hand of racers.<\/p>\n<p><u>Might Bite \u2013 12\/1<\/u><\/p>\n<p>Last year\u2019s runner-up, <em>Might Bite<\/em> has looked a shadow of his former self in the two runs this season, hence only featuring sixth with the bookies. Finishing last at the Chase at Haydock, he came up short in the King George VI Chase at Ascot. Trainer Nicky Henderson believes he can make a timely return to form \u2013 and maybe even go one better than 12 months ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cheltenham Festival 2019 is only weeks away and the meeting\u2019s showpiece, the Gold Cup, is shaping up nicely to be the most competitive in years. Last year\u2019s winner Native Winner isn\u2019t the bookies\u2019 favourite to make it back-to-back wins (a feat that last occurred in 2002-4 with Best Mate), with Presenting Percy the leader at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66720,"featured_media":195429,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/66720"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=195427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342647,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195427\/revisions\/342647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/195429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=195427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=195427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=195427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}