Who’s in line for this year’s BetVictor Gold Cup?

Horse Racing
Baron Alco expected to step up

Cheltenham’s November meeting is very nearly upon us once again and one of the key trials for both the Ryanair Chase and the Gold Cup takes place during the meeting in the shape of the BetVictor Gold Cup.

Always reliant on sponsors and formerly known as the Mackeson, the Murphy’s, the Thomas Pink and the Paddy Power Gold Cup, the £160,000 2-mile, 4½ furlong chase was won last year by the injury-prone Baron Alco, beating home the almost equally well-handicapped Frodon who went on to win the Ryanair at the Cheltenham Festival in March.

This year’s renewal, which takes place on November 16th, is just part of many trials races happening in November with the Charlie Hall Chase, Betfair Chase, Triumph Hurdle Trial, Long Distance Hurdle and the Ladbrokes Trophy among other events all being run during the month.

Who’s in Line for This Year’s BetVictor Gold Cup?

While the shape of the 2019 BetVictor Gold Cup will become more defined as we get closer to the event, a host of top candidates are already being mentioned with a view to having a tilt at a race that has produced a winner and several placed horses at the Festival since 2003, meaning winning this is a particularly good stepping stone to the big one in March.

Baron Alco

Gary Moore has had to really look after this horse and, having got a good prep run into him last October, trained him to the minute to score in last year’s renewal.

After he missed out on the Cheltenham Festival we haven’t seen this fella in action for a while now, but we’d be remiss to talk down his chances of a repeat win if getting to the race in one piece considering he’d still be challenging of a handicap mark just 6lbs higher than when taking the prize last time.

Brio Conti

The eight-year-old grey doesn’t have too many miles on the clock and, as a gelding trained by Paul Nicholls, further improvement can be expected given that he’s only gone over fences once in his life – and won.

Janika

Any improving six-year-old trained by Nicky Henderson has to make the shortlist for a race like this, but it’s especially true of Janika.

The regular ride of Daryl Jacob, this gelding has won 3 of his eight chase races and finished second on trials day at Cheltenham in January, second at the festival in the Stable Plate and fourth in the Topham Chase at Aintree on Grand National weekend.

Siruh Du Lac

Nick Williams’ charge is very much on the improve and would come into the race as the Stable Plate champion having taken that race at the festival under Lizzie Kelly back in March.

Kelly broke her arm in a fall at Exeter in early October but hopes to be back aboard the six-year-old gelding and ante-post favourite.

Spiritofthegames

Dan and Harry Skelton haven’t yet added this race to their own honours board, but in the shape of the Stable Plate third they have a top contender this time around.  Having made a successful seasonal reappearance in each of the last three campaigns, Spiritofthegames is liable to be a hot prospect when betting gets going in earnest.

BetVictor Gold Cup Betting Angles

A key part of getting your BetVictor Gold Cup bet on of course is doing it in the right place, being sure to use one of the best horse racing apps as ranked by Top Betting Apps to ensure you’re getting the best deal.

As one of the biggest early betting races of the season in its own right as well as being a strong festival trial, the BetVictor Gold Cup attracts professionals and casual punters alike, but what angles can we take on the race?

Well, trends are certainly not the be all and end all however they can be used to point us in the right direction.  This is a race in which only one of the last 10 winners has been aged 5 or 6, all of the others were aged between 7 and 9.

Chasers of this sort of age are still young enough to perhaps have plenty of improvement in them, a key betting angle in a handicap as we need to believe our selections are ahead of the assessor, but not old enough to be considered over the hill in any way.

Naturally this is a competitive race, but in the past ten renewals only two of the winners could have been genuinely described as outsiders at 20/1 and 25/1 respectively.  The other eight successful horses averaged an SP of 8/1, this despite the fact that only one favourite scored in this time period.

So, it seems fair to say that a while favourites should not be seen as being out ahead of the field it takes a quality, well handicapped horse to win this and as such the likely winner will not be allowed to go off at too huge a price, nor will it be too hard for us to find.

 

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