Cheltenham Festival Runner Profiles: Gold Cup - can Minella Indo beat Al Boum Photo in the big one?

Sky Sports Racing's Jamie Lynch looks at the leading contenders for National Hunt racing's Blue Riband event, the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Rewind to mid-October and the start of the jumps season, and a snapshot of the WellChild Cheltenham Gold Cup then was much the same as it is now.

Okay, so a couple of the names have changed and interchanged, but the shape of the market is strikingly similar, with Al Boum Photo favourite at around 3/1 and a gap back to the unremarkable rest.

The standard may not be that high, but the stakes couldn't be higher, all because it's the Gold Cup. Let's make some introductions to the primary players:

A Plus Tard

There's more than a passing resemblance to 2017 Gold Cup winner Sizing John, who likewise spent much of his career looking a two-miler, and A Plus Tard still has the distinction of being the only horse to have beaten Chacun Pour Soi in his time with Willie Mullins.

That's a big punch to be packing for staying scene, and when he went to 3m for the Savills Chase over Christmas it wasn't that he got away with the trip but he relished it, needing all of it, in fact, to catch Kemboy, who subsequently won the Irish Gold Cup.

A Plus Tard stacks up as the "hot" horse in this year's Gold Cup, for his age, his approach and his ammunition, a mix which none of the others can call upon, not even Al Boum Photo. Cheltenham is a further 510 yards, but on good ground that would translate to only 10 seconds or so of extra running compared to Leopardstown (6:25.70), or 20-odd seconds on good to soft. He's one of the handful of horses who's got it in him to surpass Al Boum Photo's standard.

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Al Boum Photo

The answer to the specious question of why Al Boum Photo hasn't the adulation you might expect is that he's in a sub-standard era, and he's nothing special himself; on top of which it really doesn't matter. History, as always, will do the best job of judging Al Boum Photo. All we have to concern ourselves with for now is this horse in this Gold Cup.

Al Boum Photo is getting all the credit and respect he deserves, expressed in our sport in the rating and the odds. We've got a dual Gold Cup winner available at as big as 3/1 despite the opposition seeming little or no better than the previous two years, which relates back to his standard and status being lighter than his CV.

We know what Al Boum Photo can do in a Gold Cup, and how he gets there, following the tried-and-tested path again this time, via one stop at Tramore. As such, to all intents and purposes, the focus of the 2021 Gold Cup is less about Al Boum Photo and more on the others, the onus on them to beat him at his own game, at which he's very good, but not unsurpassable, remembering how close Santini and Lostintranslation got to him last year.

Champ

It's a strange state of affairs whereby a horse who had Gold Cup written all over him with such a strong-staying success in the RSA has had the 1-2-3 prep for the big race: 1 run, over 2m, just three weeks out from Cheltenham. Though running well, and indeed jumping well, in the Game Spirit, it still shouldn't be forgotten that it's an ill-fitting preparation for a Gold Cup.

The enthusiasm that propelled his Newbury performance will have to be checked and, in turn, there'll be different pressure points on his jumping. In short, Newbury did a job for Champ, but it was hardly a graduation for a Gold Cup.

On the plus side, it was at least an overdue connection point to the novice Champ, who looked full of stamina and potential when he surged up the Cheltenham hill last March. It's all a balancing act, for Champ, for Nicky, for Nico and for punters, but the fact it's a balancing act at all should sound a note of caution for a horse who's now second favourite in most lists for chasing's biggest prize.

Frodon

Just a brilliant racehorse, first and foremost. However, besides his rhythm and the run of the race, what else Frodon had in his favour in the King George was the element of surprise, allied to the rest rather underestimating him, and that won't happen in a Gold Cup.

He has made Cheltenham his second home, compiling a remarkable record over fences there, with 6 wins from 11 starts, but there's a reason he's never gone to the Gold Cup, because it has always looked a little beyond his means, and what happened at Kempton over Christmas doesn't change things in that regard.

In summary, the more Frodon can control a race the more potent he is, but a Gold Cup will be out of his comfort zone and therefore out of his control.

Kemboy

The only horse to have beaten Al Boum Photo in the last two years is Kemboy, a significant stat that still goes a little under the radar because the memory around that Punchestown race remains Ruby Walsh's snap retirement.

In terms of ability, Kemboy probably stands above all staying chasers in the current crop, but the phrase horses for courses - or horses not for courses in this instance - applies to Kemboy, who just doesn't seem compatible with Cheltenham's chase track, as evidenced by three blundering attempts around there, in a JLT and two Gold Cups.

He's more assured when he can bully small fields, highlighted by the 5-runner Irish Gold Cup on his latest start, a world away from what would await him at Cheltenham, and an alternative entry in the Stayers' Hurdle is in itself some admission of incompatibility.

Minella Indo

It's a price thing with Minella Indo, because there was good reason why he was favourite for the races won by A Plus Tard and Kemboy, in which he blotted his copybook not once but twice, but are his realigned odds for the Gold Cup - as big as 16/1 - an over-reaction? That's the burning question.

Think back to the RSA, when Minella Indo looked a better horse than Champ for 99 per cent of the race (though admittedly so did Allaho), before he started this season so purposefully with back-to-back wins that put him towards the top of the best of the rest betting for the Gold Cup.

You have to be forgiving about Leopardstown the last twice, but the former was an uncharacteristic fall and the latter was when dancing to Kemboy's tune; and all the reasons why Kemboy isn't so good a fit for the Gold Cup are the same reasons why Minella Indo still might be.

Native River

The 2018 Gold Cup winner who still has fire in his belly. In fact, in terms of weights and measures, Native River's win in the Cotswold Chase (rearranged at Sandown) was about as good a performance as we've seen in the staying division this season, in stringing out Bristol De Mai and Santini amongst others.

However, that scenario - of heavy ground at Sandown and taking charge around halfway - was the perfect playground for Native River, and to have any chance at Cheltenham he'll need the rain and plenty of it, which is most unlikely according to forecasts.

He'll be in the firing line from the outset, but his role is more of kingmaker than king himself, against the younger legs, under the probable conditions.

Royale Pagaille

To retrace the steps that have brought him to the brink of chasing's blue riband, you've got to go left, then left again, and another left at the end. To say that Royale Pagaille has come from left field is an understatement.

But there's no fluke about it. From finishing last in a pair of small-field novices last season, Royal Pagaille hasn't looked back, steamrollering through a novice and two handicaps in striking style, increasingly impressive, though two of those wins came on Haydock's heavy ground which can be a law unto itself.

In the Gold Cup field, he's the hardest horse to weigh up, and therefore price up, but there are only three horses ahead of him in the betting, so there's a price to pay to find out if he belongs in this higher class, on top of the question of better ground for a horse who moves through the mud so well.

True, none of Santini's races this campaign have plugged into what his strengths are, but there's barely been a flash of the beast within, making it a leap of faith to expect a transformation in the Gold Cup, even at inflated odds compared to his position in the market for much of the season.

Coming back to Cheltenham may well stimulate him, and there's sterner headgear to deploy (other than his usual cheekpieces), but it's all a matter of hope, now that the hype has subsided.

JAMIE LYNCH'S VERDICT

Status quo is the tagline for the Gold Cup, as things haven't changed considerably through the season and, as such, Al Boum Photo is still in pole position for a 'threepeat'. But his standard isn't that high, and the two younger pretenders who, at the start of the season, looked the likeliest to surpass him were Champ and Minella Indo, who are both still on the scene, without things having gone smoothly for either. A couple of failures reduce rather than remove the chances of MINELLA INDO hitting new heights in the Gold Cup, and therefore he's the appealing one at the prices.