The Doyen Chief is the same age as was Smad Place!

November 27

Second-season novices have an excellent record in the Coral Gold Cup – still known by us old-timers as the Hennessy – and The Doyen Chief ticks a lot of the boxes for Newbury’s biggest steeplechase of the season being run on Saturday.

The Doyen Chief has never finished out of the first three in six races over fences, and he has climbed 15lb up the handicap these past 12 months.

Only once during that period did The Doyen Chief not start favourite, and, while now around 14-1 as he steps into the deep end for the first time, he ran the perfect prep-race for his biggest test when runner-up last time out at Bangor, where an untidy jump at the last fence proved costly

Furthermore, eight-year-olds have won three of the last five runnings, so, while The Doyen Chief is unproven over this distance, he has an awful lot going for him, not least the fact that Smad Place, who won the race for Barbury 10 years ago, was also eight.

Stablemate Grandeur d’Ame, our second representative in the race, is just a year older, and, while he had an unhappy experience on his only previous visit to Newbury, breaking a blood vessel and having to be pulled up, I doubt if you’ll find a better jumper of a fence in the field.

Grandeur d’Ame gained ground at virtually every obstacle on his seasonal debut at Stratford, and, though the winner, subsequent Cheltenham runner-up Be Aware, looked to have his measure at the last, Grandeur d’Ame might well have hung on for second place had he not tipped up there.

Our other Saturday runner is Charisma Cat, who also makes the short journey to Newbury, but the fact that Alan has opted to pitch her in a Listed race for her hurdling debut is testament to how highly he rates his mare.

Charisma Chat won three of her five bumper races last season, gaining her black type at Sandown before being unlucky not to win at Market Rasen.

Alan is adamant that Charisma Cat was better than her last run at Aintree suggests, and, though she had s setback in the autumn, which has meant that she has taken time to catch up the others in her homework, she is now ready to roll, and Alan has always rated her highly.