Grands Crus put in an excellent round of jumping when winning his second race over fences at Newbury on Thursday. Photograph: David Davies/PAIt was a small but dedicated crowd that turned up at Newbury on Thursday for the start of the three-day Hennessy Gold Cup meeting, rather than the thousands who will stagger away from the track after Saturday's main event, but the purists will probably reflect that they enjoyed the better part of the deal.
There are several promising types engaged in the Hennessy yet time may well prove that the best chaser on show all weekend was Grands Crus, who took the Grade Two GPG Novice Chase, the feature race on the card.
A starting price of 2-7 about David Pipe's grey, who was less than two lengths behind the outstanding Big Buck's in last year's World Hurdle at Cheltenham, suggested that this would be little more than a stress-free outing round one of the fairest and most inviting jumping tracks in the country. In the end, though, Tom Scudamore had to ask for some effort to see off the persistent challenge of Sonofvic by two lengths and the willingness with which Grands Crus responded was even more encouraging than a hard-held victory.
Grands Crus is still only six years old and there is no horse in training whose potential to reach the top in steeplechasing is more obvious.
He was generally unchanged at around 7-2 after race for the RSA Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in March but he is also top-priced at 16-1 for the Gold Cup itself, just a couple of points longer than the second-favourite, Kauto Star.
The Pipe yard lost Gloria Victis when he contested the Gold Cup as a novice for Pipe's father Martin in 2000, which may inform the discussion at Pond House over the possibility of running in the Gold Cup this season, but Scudamore still has a great deal to look forward to.
"Wherever he goes, I'll go," Scudamore said. "He's got enough speed to drop back to two-and-a-half miles, as he showed at Cheltenham [on his chasing debut] last time, but he obviously stays three miles and he'll stay further than that one day. I'm sure David will make the right decision [for Cheltenham in March], and I imagine it will be between the Jewson and the RSA.
"His jumping today was even better than at Cheltenham last time. It rode like a middling sort of a race, Sam [Twiston-Davies] was doing the right thing by going off quickly [on Viking Blond] and then pulling it back, and I don't think a year ago Grands Crus would have settled like he did. Up the straight his jumping was foot perfect.
"Obviously Sonofvic is a very good horse but it's just another step up the ladder and some of the jumps he put in felt breathtaking. Today over those last few he was up quicker than he's ever been over any fences and he jumped those better than he's jumped any other fence in the race, which just goes to show he's maturing now. Whether it's a slowly run race or a fast-run race, it doesn't make any difference to him, he's just class."
Pipe was not in attendance here but the Grade One Feltham Novice Chase at Kempton's King George VI Chase meeting on Boxing Day is likely to be the next assignment for Grands Crus and victory there would increase speculation that, with one more run behind him, he may contest the Gold Cup as the fifth race of his chasing career.
The obvious recent precedent for a young Gold Cup winner is the last one, as Long Run was having only his sixth start over British fences when he took steeplechasing's greatest prize in March. Yet he had experience over fences in France before moving to join Nicky Henderson and was in his second year over the bigger obstacles in Britain.
Time is on Grands Crus's side, though, and worries about where he will go and what price he may be can wait for another day. What matters is that he is a young and significant emerging talent and, while National Hunt racing is in good health already, no sport can have too many of those.
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