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I can’t see past Top Notch personally but if you want to take him on might be worth doing it with Paddy as they go money back as a free bet up to £10
Place a bet of up to £10 in the Betfair Ascot Chase (15.35 Ascot) on Saturday, and get your stake back as a free bet if Top Notch wins. Applies to win market and win part of each way bets only.
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Race of the season for me it’s a cracker and I can’t see past waiting patiently tbh. We will see come Saturday
It isn’t a race for 2 selections, so i’ll Stick with Cue Card, but the more I look at it, the more I agree with The Top Notch corner here.
This is definitely one of the best races of the season so far. Unfortunately I’m in London with work this weekend. What’s the chances of being able to avoid the result until Monday night
Cue Card for me is overpriced. He still has the best form in the race but does he have the legs? No guarantee he will win but I think he’ll run a big race.
I have a sneaking suspicion that WP will be the latest horse to create a great impression up north only to be found out when running in a big race down south.
Coney Island could be anything but for me Top Notch has the best form in the race outside of Cue Card.
Speredek will be interesting stepped up in trip. He has won over almost three miles over hurdles however surely he’ll have to run with more restraint than he does over two miles.
Frodon is intriguing. After a great season last year he finally found form at Cheltenham and if Bryony Frost can get him jumping and travelling like she seems able to do so often he could be a player.
If I had to throw some money at it I’d join those backing Cue Card each way.
Frodon has plenty to find with Top Notch from November and I am always very wary when a horse produces a significant personal best on Heavy ground. I would have to make Frodon a lay in this company, to me it seems unlikely he can reverse form with Top Notch.
Top Notch won the Peterborough Chase but that form is stinking the place out. The four runner affair saw Top Notch beat Josses Hill by three and a half lengths and that won’t be good enough in this standard. The Racing Post gave Top Notch as running to 168 that day but I am highly dubious about that.
Josses Hill got 162 from the Racing Post in the Peterborough but when he was cuffed 21 lengths by Waiting Patiently next time the Racing Post gave him 149 and I wouldn’t exactly trust the 162 from the Peterborough, when everything else in the race was unplaced next time. Ptit Zig and Vaniteux, who made up that 4 runner race are horses who have been very disappointing in the main for a fair while now and it looked much less impressive to me than the win over Double Shuffle, yet the Racing Post have just three pounds between the quality of those wins.
Top Notch or Waiting Patiently I would say, but at double the odds and with that last run from Top Notch, I had to side with Waiting Patiently.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
Patriot1 – Waiting Patiently creating a great impression up north?
He won a listed chase at Kempton LTO.As I said previously I think ground is a big thing here and the soft to heavy going will suit Waiting Patiently possibly best out of them all here.
They’ve always seen Top Notch as a horse that prefers better ground and he won’t be tuned up fully to win this where as WP May just have been trained a bit more to the minute.
Cue Card is my favourite horse and i’d Love to see him win but he looks a shadow of himself to me and even though 10s is tempting I think it’d be a ‘value loser’.
Coney Island I feel may just be a bit short with the Ryanair in mind also & Frodon for all that I like him probably isn’t a G1 animal. Same applies to Speredek & TF is a no hoper.
Feel WP is the most likely winner here but if Top Notch or Coney Island can win this in these conditions then they should be fav for the Ryanair post-race.
To be fair Steve that three and a half length winning margin in the Peterborough chase you say wouldn’t be good enough to take this could easily have been ten times that distance!
All the other three jockeys in the race were pushing their mounts from at least 4 out while Jacob was sat motionless until after the last where he then quickened clear with ease…
Those saying this is like WP’s Cheltenham as he may skip the festival, this may well be Top Notch’s best chance of a big race…
As I said earlier he’s 5 from 5 going right handed and just 5 from 14 left…0 from 4 at Cheltenham (two festival 2nds I know) and 0 from 2 at Aintree so this could well be his best chance…
I like Top Notch, Waiting Patiently and Coney Island as horses but I’m just going to watch and enjoy.
Whatever wins should have run the race if it’s life.I agree that a great race is in prospect. I will ignore the two outsiders. He may look good at home but on the track age has caught up with Cue Card, I doubt he will replicate last year’s form in this and worry he will take another heavy fall when coming under pressure. I don’t fancy Coney Island, his best form appears to be on G-S or better and he is overrated on the form of last time against two relatively poor rivals. He won’t be winning this if he gets that far behind again. So I boil it down to the other three and Top Notch is the safe bet as Frodon and Waiting Patiently have to improve to reach his level. But not by much and I think both are capable of doing so, therefore, it’s hard to split them. All three handle the Soft/Heavy ground but Frodon may relish it most. Heavy may or may not have been the reason for his astonishing performance last time, it could be he is open to bigger chunks of improvement than the other two because he’s a year younger (and yet has had more chase runs than the other two put together thus more experience). A tight call, but then I look at the odds and TN and WP are 9/4 and 5/2 whereas Frodon is 12/1 so it’s a no brainer to take a chance on him proving last time was for real.
Frodon is pretty weak in the betting and I’d be worried seeing 14/1 chalked up. It hasn’t been a great season for Nicholls in terms of big winners either.
Cue Card has a big following and you might have expected to see him lower than he is in the betting. 11/1 seems reason for concern.
Coney Island is still 4/1 in places and that’s roughly double the odds of the two at the head of the betting. I would lay him at 3/1 myself, just not convinced he beat much last time.
It’s tight at the head of the market and I would say that’s a more positive vibe for Waiting Patiently. Gun to the head, I would expect more to plump for Top Notch but Waiting Patiently has been pretty solid.
Watching Waiting Patiently’s last run again, he seemed to jump better once given the office and really going for it. He put in a great leap at the last to seal the race and he handled soft ground when beating Politologue. The trainer has said he’s not really ground dependent but added that no ground would be too soft for him.
The Ryanair is said to be the only possible target for Waiting Patiently at Cheltenham and they have said they will wait until after this race to consider the Festival race. It’s a Championship race that could potentially cut up quite badly so I had a few quid on Waiting Patiently at 8/1 for the Ryanair. If he doesn’t win tomorrow it’s probably game over and if he wins it I reckon they would probably have to let him take his chance. 6/1 NRNB is just slightly too “Skittery” for me.
Good Luck everyone.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
I love Top Notch but I think there’s a big chance either / both of Waiting Paitently and Coney Island can improve past him today.
Sure to be a fantastic spectacle
I know I’m well stated as saying I’m happy to just be sat on Cue Card e/w at 10/1 but I changed tack this morning and have gone in to limited stakes on Coney Island at 4/1. At 7/2 I wouldn’t have got involved but 4/1 is just about the ‘bet’ price for me. If he’s the Gold Cup horse the Irish believe he is then he should win. I’m sceptical about his win here last time but his novice form is very good indeed and I suppose he has the room for improvement from that run that the others don’t.
Cue Card 10/1 each-way (3 places)
Coney Island 4/1 winConey Island looks a terrible price to me. Was dead in the market and out with the washing for a long way in a diabolical race last time.
People are saying this is a ‘vintage’ Ascot Chase but I’m not so sure. It’s fairly good on paper but we’d need to see a special performance to make it any more than that.
I think Coney Island is pants and Cue Card is well past it. Top Notch is a fair little horse but has been routinely exposed at the top level, much to my disappointment as I backed him in the JLT last season. It really is down to Waiting Patiently to make this into a great race. I fell in love with the horse after he crushed Politologue last season and really hope he comes through as a star performer today – even more so with the Jefferson sentimental angle.
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