Cheltenham Festival 2023 trends: Champion Chase

By Timeform, Friday 10 March 2023

Posted in: Cheltenham Festival Tips

Timeform highlight the key trends to consider for the Champion Chase, the feature race on the second day of the Cheltenham Festival.

Champion Chase

Edwardstone (Timeform weight-adjusted rating 185) and Energumene (189) are clear at the top of the Champion Chase betting but the race trends paint a picture of a more open contest with several ticking many of the boxes of a typical winner. All of the last ten Champion Chase winners were Grade 1 winners already and nine of those had an adjusted Timeform rating of 175 or more - all the principals in this year’s race meet both those conditions.

The majority of Champion Chase winners had either won, or been placed at, the Festival already. That’s good news for both favourites, with Energumene winning the race last year and Edwardstone successful in the Sporting Life Arkle, whereas (180+) just misses out on a tick in that box after finishing fourth in last year’s Grand Annual. Otherwise, though, Editeur du Gite’s Cheltenham form figures read 1131 and he had both Edwardstone and Energumene behind him for his latest success in the rearranged Clarence House Chase.

Each of that trio are nine-year-olds which makes them slightly older than most of the last ten Champion Chase winners, whereas Energumene’s stablemates Blue Lord (178) and Gentleman de Mee (177) are in the ‘right’ age-range, being eight and seven respectively. In fact, it’s only a last-time-out shock defeat to Gentleman de Mee in the Dublin Chase which prevents Blue Lord ticking all seven boxes. Gentleman de Mee doesn’t have a win or place at the Festival, though he was well fancied but ran too free in the Martin Pipe two years ago.

Greaneteen (177) passes the ‘quality control’ (175+ rating, Grade 1 winner) tests, and though he hasn’t been placed at the Festival he’s run well to be fourth on both previous visits in the 2020 Grand Annual and the 2021 renewal of this race.