Day Two of the Cheltenham Festival sees the Queen Mother Champion Chase take place but for the second year running they will be no Altior has an unsatisfactory scope on Monday morning has ruled him out.
Lets start with the first race of day two anyways which is the Ballymore hurdle and when jockey Harry Cobden said that his horse in the race was probably his best chance of the week, that sealed the deal for me.
Bravemansgame has been impressive to say the least since going hurdling, with three facile victories, none more impressive than last time out where he destroyed the field in the Challow hurdle at Newbury to win a Grade one.
His trainer Paul Nicholls has talked about the horse being like Denman which is a big compliment and despite needing to improve again, I'm sure he will.
Bear Ghylls would be a much loved winner of the race for Nicky Martin but this field is very competitive with the Irish charges Bob Olinger and Gaillard Du Mensil being the dangers.
I think the winner will come from one of them three though and I'm going to side with Bravemansgame purely because of how good he has looked so far but it wouldn't surprise me to see one of the other two win either.
Race two is a Grade one Novices' Chase contest and this looks very similar to the first race of the day.
I'll keep my choice simple here though, Monkfish is just a machine and I'm not sure if some of the other horses in the race have the same class as him and for that reason I think he'll win it.
Henry De Bromhead's Eklat De Rire is my pick to chase him home in a race which could be an Irish one-two.
Next up is the first handicap of day two and it's the Coral Cup which is race number three of the day.
Going through this race and trying to find the winner is very difficult with so many runners to pick from.
Grand Roi is a good horse though, and if he can keep the errors at bay then I think he will be involved at the end of the race.
I'm going to go with Guard Your Dreams here though for the Twiston Davies family who has got in at a nice weight of only 10st 6lbs.
He finished fifth behind Soaring Glory in the Betfair Hurdle and he's already won a class two around Sandown this season so I think he's definitely worth a small punt to get placed here.
Now we're onto the big race of the day, the Queen Mother Champion Chase.
Altior is out, as mentioned at the start, but I don't think he would have won it anyways due to how competitive it looks this year.
We have last year's winner the old grey Politologue, the Skelton's run Nube Negra and the favourite for the race the Willie Mullins trained Chacun Pour Soi.
Chacun Pour Soi didn't make it to the race last year but he's been in tremendous form this season so is mightily difficult to oppose.
I think the main danger here is a burst of pace from a horse which could seal the race when a lot of horses might be struggling to get up the hill.
Nube Negra won with plenty in hand when he downed Altior at Christmas, and if he does make it up the hill, I think he's got a great chance.
Coming into this festival jockey Harry Skelton has the best book of rides for Cheltenham that's he's ever had, and I think this horse can add a sudden injection of pace to the race, and find many of the others out.
There's plenty of pace in the race with First Flow, Politologue and Put The Kettle On all looking to go forward early, and this sets it up for horses who are held up.
For me, the favourite is very hard to beat, but if any horse is going to do it, I would think it would be Nube Negra who would.
Next up is the Cross Country race, and I'll keep things simple again here, Easysland should bounce back from last time and make it back to back cross countries.
Race six is a handicap chase, and like all handicaps at the festival this year, the winner could come from anywhere!
Sky Pirate though is the one for me, he's looked a different horse over 2 mile, and if Allmankind wins on the Tuesday then his run behind him in the Kingmaker will start to look very good indeed.
He never finished off his races over 3 mile with any conviction, and the drop back to 2 as shown just how good he can be, and another big plus is the fact that he's already won around Cheltenham as well so, he's my fancy here.
Final race of the day is the Champion Bumper and I'm just going to pick two here who I think will go close.
The first is Sir Gerhard for Willie Mullins, and the second is Elle Est Belle who's already made it up the hill once, and will do so again with a bit of luck!
Enjoy the festival though anyways and let's sit back, relax, and enjoy some fantastic racing!
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