Reve De Sivola

26th-Jan-2013

Oscar Whisky is going to have to stay (three miles) really strongly today as the ground will be very testing and the race is sure to be run at a really good gallop. I am very happy to be against him at the price.

I am backing Reve De Sivola. The case for him is as laid out a couple of weeks ago when advised for the World Hurdle, and he has everything in his favour here. A really top-class novice hurdler, he won the Grade 2 Persian War Hurdle on soft ground and the Grade 1 Challow Hurdle on heavy ground, and he finished runner-up to Peddlers Cross in the Neptune Hurdle and won the Grade 1 Champion Novice Hurdle at Punchestown.

He didn’t really make it as a chaser and, after a run to get his eye in back over hurdles behind Big Buck’s in the Long Distance Hurdle at Newbury, he excelled over the smaller obstacles when winning the Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot. He travelled with much more fluency than is normally the case, initially in behind the clear leader Kayf Aramis and then out on his own, he jumped really well and came right away from Smad Place, who was third in last year’s World Hurdle as a five-year-old. He acts well on a sound surface but he is at least as good, probably better, on softer ground and so conditions today should be ideal.

He has good form at Cheltenham, and he will be ideally suited to today’s test in testing ground with plenty of likely pace in the race. If Carruthers and/or Knockara Beau want to go on and make the running, then Richard Johnson can sit just behind them. If that pair aren’t ridden quite so forcefully, then Johnson can make his own running, and that will make him dangerous. With everything in his favour, he should be favourite in my book ahead of Oscar Whisky and he is well worth backing at 9/4 or 5/2.

REVE DE SIVOLA WON (ADV 9/4, SP 15/8)

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