Cheltenham Festival preview: Fair can spice up pre-Festival fun with 33-1 Imperial dash

Ballycross wins The Team Army Handicap Hurdle Sandown (Rex)

Vautour has been left in next Thursday’s Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham at the latest declaration stage, but is expected to take his chance in the following day’s Gold Cup alongside his Willie Mullins-trained stable companions Djakadam and Don Poli, after impressing on the gallops.

Heavy rain earlier this week turned the Prestbury Park ground soft and arguably against Vautour, who appeared to be at the very limits of his stamina when run down close home by Cue Card over two and a half furlongs shorter in the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day. But the forecast is for a dry week and Mullins, confident that Vautour will, as at the past two Festivals, peak when it matters most, is anticipating a huge run.

Taquin De Seuil, winner of the 2014 JLT Novices’ Chase, has been supplemented by Jonjo O’Neill for the Ryanair, but David Pipe has lost his race against time to get Moon Racer, absent since winning last season’s Champion Bumper, ready for Tuesday’s Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

The Imperial Cup was once more prestigious than the Champion Hurdle and, even when it lost that status, horses of the calibre of Lanzarote and Ekbalco would take in Sandown’s handicap en route to bigger things.

More recently it became pretty much the property of the Pipes, Martin and David, who won the race nine times between them, usually landing huge public gambles, occasionally with horses who landed large bonuses by following up at the Festival.

These days the best handicappers tend to wait for Cheltenham, but this afternoon’s renewal should still be some spectacle with up to half a dozen confirmed trailblazers in the field. In theory, they should end up cutting each other’s throats, but that did not happen last year when Ebony Express and Rayvin Black, both running again, were first and second throughout. Even so, it is hard not to believe that on heavy ground they will not set it up for those ridden more patiently, another tick in the box for the favourite, Affaire D’Honneur.

Losing several lengths when spooking at the starting tape, Affaire D’Honneur did extremely well to finish fourth in last month’s Betfair Hurdle on only his second British start. According to his trainer, Harry Whittington, he is “showing all the right signals, he is ready for this”.

There have been a few turn-ups in recent years – 33-1 last season and 20-1 winners in 2012 and 2013. At first glance, the 33-1 chance Spice Fair, a nine-year-old with 64 runs under his belt and trained by a Flat specialist, Mark Usher, does not appear to have a lot going for him. But this in-form stayer, too keen to do himself justice whenever the field dawdles, should benefit if his rivals go crazy up front.

Trainer Jim Best faces a lengthy ban after he and former conditional jockey Paul John were yesterday found guilty at a British Horseracing Authority disciplinary hearing of failing to ensure two horses, Echo Brava and Missile Man, ran on their merits last December.