Tom Scudamore rode Grands Crus to victory at Kempton on Boxing Day
For 20 years, jump racing has yearned for a grey-coloured replacement for Desert Orchid in the public’s affections, and in Grands Crus that horse may finally have been discovered.
The seven-year-old, trained by David Pipe for owners Roger Stanley and Yvonne Reynolds, was born on April Fool’s Day, but has been looking like the real thing ever since.
Unlucky to have been up against the long-unbeaten Big Buck’s in top long-distance hurdle races, Grands Crus has now escaped his old foe with a new career over steeplechase fences.
And after three wins from just three starts over the bigger obstacles, the horse is rated a Cheltenham Gold Cup-winner-in-waiting, in which context he now faces his biggest test in Saturday’s Argento Chase, held at the same Cotswold track.
Success there could see him taking on Kauto Star and co in this season’s Gold Cup, although the RSA Chase – at the same Festival fixture, but against fellow “novices” – is a possible alternative.
“With a horse like him, it’s hard not to get carried away,” says Tom Scudamore, regular rider of Grands Crus, before adding diplomatically: “But each race is his next target.”
That said, Scudamore, 29, and Pipe’s number one jockey, admits: “Every step he’s has taken this season has been another step up the ladder.”
The sequence began with smooth successes at Cheltenham and Newbury, but reached an impressive mid-season climax in the prestigious Feltham Novices’ Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day.
That day, top-notch opponents were swept aside in a time nearly three seconds faster than Kauto Star managed in winning a fifth King George VI Chase over the identical course on the same afternoon.
Although impressed by the time, Scudamore prefers to concentrate on the style in which the grey “left the others for dust”.
Not so long ago, Grands Crus’s exuberance gave cause for concern, but it has been striking how much more mature he has seemed since graduating to fences.
“He’s grown up in his attitude,” reckons Scudamore. “He’s a lot more settled, instead of burning all that energy by trying to fight me – and that’s made him a better racehorse.
“Maybe the bigger obstacles have calmed him down a bit. It’s a boring answer, but he just makes my life so straightforward.”
Grands Crus’s principal Argento Chase rivals Captain Chris, Diamond Harry and Time For Rupert are all Gold Cup pretenders too.
And although those three are more experienced steeplechasers, such has been the impact Grands Crus has made, it is he who bookmakers make favourite.
There will be coverage of both the Argento Chase (Saturday, 1435 GMT) and the attempt by Big Buck’s to make it 15 straight wins (Cleeve Hurdle, 1540 GMT), on BBC Radio 5 live
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/sport1/hi/horse_racing/16721294.stm
