Altior, with his winning streak reset from 19 back to zero, will return to action at Newbury on Saturday for the first time since his defeat by Cyrname at Ascot in November, and with Nicky Henderson, his trainer, apparently still regretting his decision to send Altior up against the top-rated chaser in training on his first start of the campaign.
At an event on Monday to launch the buildup to the Betfair Hurdle card at Newbury, where Altior will face a maximum of nine opponents as he attempts to win the Game Spirit Chase for the third year running, Henderson suggested Altior and his connections had “paid the penalty” for running in a much-anticipated head-to-head with Cyrname.
“Paul [Nicholls, Cyrname’s trainer] might disagree with me totally but his horse didn’t run his race in the King George [on Boxing Day] and we took a long time to get over it,” Henderson said.
“Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have run but you are then leaving the race as a walkover. What would the racing public say about that? You should say the horse comes first, unfortunately we did it the other way round and paid the penalty.”
Henderson also suggested that he had felt under pressure to try something different with Altior by stepping him up in trip. “We said we would have a go at a longer distance, but what we did was leave all the other races like the Clarence House Chase [at Ascot in January] going begging.
“It was the wrong thing to do but there was a lot of pressure put on us, saying: ‘Come on, do something different. If you say he is a champion, prove he can stay. Otherwise he is just a boring two-mile chaser.’ So he’s a boring two-mile chaser.”
Exactly when and where anyone ever used the word boring in connection with the exceptional Altior was not specified but it was surely not the punters for whom Altior was akin to a four-legged cash machine during his long unbeaten run over hurdles and fences.
What backers need to assess now, however, is whether the run at Ascot may have left a permanent mark on the 10-year-old. Having given his all on very soft ground over two miles five when he was short of race-fitness, will Altior now struggle to rediscover the zest at two miles that carried him to victory in the Champion Chase in 2018 and 2019?
Sedgefield: 1.25 Sabbathical, 1.55 Haasab, 2.25 Ulterior Motives, 3.00 Ouro Branco (nb), 3.30 Let The Heirs Walk, 4.05 On We Go (nap), 4.35 Two Hoots
Market Rasen: 1.40 Colorado Doc, 2.10 Blue Hussar, 2.45 Balgemmois, 3.15 McFabulous, 3.50 Lady Master, 4.20 Starsky
Kempton Park: 4.50 Sir Rodneyredblood, 5.25 A Go Go, 6.00 Law Of Peace, 6.30 Family Fortunes, 7.00 Atletico, 7.30 Ilhabela Fact, 8.00 Munaajaat, 8.30 Estrela Star
He is, according to Henderson, working as well as always at home. “Altior schooled last week [and] you would seriously wonder why in the world we would want to go further than two miles. No horse in England would keep up with what he was going the other day, not one. Blink and you would have missed it but that’s him.”
The gallops and the racecourse can prove to be very different things, however, not least when a horse gets to the last couple of fences after a hard race last time out.
Altior has been installed as the 1-2 favourite for Saturday’s race, ahead of Sceau Royal (6-1), Dynamite Dollars (7-1) and Kalashnikov (7-1), all of whom are rated around a stone or more behind him.
It is a tempting carrot for heavy hitters but less aggressive punters may decide to let Altior run unbacked ahead of a possible meeting with Defi Du Seuil and Chacun Pour Soi in the Champion Chase next month.