The Young Master

23rd-Apr-2016

The Young Master is a high-class handicap chaser who, aged just seven, still has the potential to progress again, especially now that he is stepping up to an extreme trip on Saturday.  He has had a fairly light campaign this term, which is a positive in the context of the Bet365 Gold Cup, a big end-of-season handicap chase when some horses are sure to be over the top at the end of long campaigns.

A faller at the first fence in the Hennessy, he ran well to finish a close-up fourth in the listed handicap chase that Wakanda won at Ascot in December.

He was well beaten by Thistlecrack in the Cleeve Hurdle on his next run in January, but everything was well beaten by Thistlecrack this season, it was on unsuitably heavy ground, and that run, his first over hurdles in two years, was obviously a sharpener for Cheltenham.  And he ran a cracker there, in the Ultima Handicap Chase, to finish third behind Un Temps Pour Tout and Holywell, two high-class and well-handicapped staying chasers, with another high-class and well-handicapped horse in Morning Assembly back in fourth, the four of them clear.

It really is surprising that the handicapper dropped him 1lb for that.  It was one of the best runs of his life.  And he stayed on well that day, he left the impression that he could progress again for a step up in trip.

Also, the switch back to a right-handed track is in his favour.  He does have a tendency to go to his right over his fences, and his record at right-handed tracks over fences reads 1124.  He goes well on good ground, and he should have a real chance in Saturday’s race.

THE YOUNG MASTER WON (ADV 12/1, SP 8/1)