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Cheltenham Festival: Big guns stand ground for Champion

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Sprinter Sacre (Nico de Boinville,right)

Sire De Grugy (left) and Sprinter Sacre among 12 forfeits for Cheltenham

  PICTURE: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)  

 By Andrew Dietz 12:59PM 10 MAR 2016 

THE last three winners of the Betway Champion Chase remain on course to set odds-on favourite Un De Sceaux a stern challenge in the feature race on day two of the Cheltenham Festival.

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Dodging Bullets, Sire De Grugy and Sprinter Sacre were on Thursday among the 12 confirmed entries for Wednesday’s two-mile spectacular, while Vautour, who is seemingly bound for the Cheltenham Gold Cup, has also been left in.

As well as Un De Sceaux and Vautour, impressive winners of last season’s Racing Post Arkle and JLT Novices’ Chase, Willie Mullins dominates the entries with Felix Younger and Twinlight also engaged.

Henry de Bromhead, who won the race with Sizing Europe in 2011, is set to rely on last year’s third Special Tiara, with former stablemate Sizing Granite, now in the care of Brave Inca’s trainer Colm Murphy, adding further strength to the Irish challenge.

Somersby, a standing dish in the Champion Chase, is in line for a fifth crack at the race after finishing second to Dodging Bullets 12 months ago.

God’s Own, runner-up to Un De Sceaux in last year’s Racing Post Arkle, and the Micky Hammond-trained Just Cameron complete the dozen possibles.

Coral Cup shake-up

While the Champion Chase avoided any notable omissions, it was the opposite scenario in the same day’s Coral Cup with a big shake-up in the market following the scratchings of a string of fancied contenders.

Four of the top six in the betting have been taken out, including the Mullins-trained Great Field, who was favourite with some firms.

Nicky Henderson-trained pair Different Gravey and Kilcrea Vale were taken out, as was Lil Rockerfeller, who was on Wednesday supplemented for the Stan James Champion Hurdle at a cost of £20,000.

In the revised betting Diamond King and Arbre De Vie are 10-1 joint-favourites with the sponsors, closely followed by Politologue, Rock The Kasbah and Squouateur at 12-1.

Other day two Grade 1s

There were no shock absentees from Wednesday’s RSA Chase, for which 21 possibles remain in the mix, or the Neptune Investment Management Novices’ Hurdle, where 5-4 favourite Yanworth featured among 28 contenders.

Mullins is responsible for seven of the 25 horses at the six-day entry stage for the Weatherbys Champion Bumper, a race he has won a record eight times.

 

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