Europe Heads Champion Chase Market

Reigning Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Sizing Europe has come in for solid support in the ante-post market for this season’s renewal of the two-mile chasing crown and is now generally offered at just 2/1 favourite with the last of the 9/4 that was previously available drying up quickly, writes Elliot Slater.

The Henry de Bromhead-trained gelding beat his arch rival Big Zeb in fine style to land the crown last March by five-lengths before Big Zeb gained his revenge in a scintillating contest at Punchestown six weeks later when prevailing by three-quarters-of-a-length in the Grade 1 Bolyesports.com Champion Chase. De Bromhead began this term with the idea of campaigning his 10-year-old stable star at distances up to three miles, and after making a winning seasonal return over two-and-a-half-miles at Gowran Park in October, Sizing Europe ran a tremendous race in failing by just over a length to defeat Ireland’s leading Cheltenham Gold Cup hope Quito de La Roque in a fine contest for the Grade 1 JNwine.com Chase at Down Royal the following month. Anyone searching for the best Cheltenham Festival odds needs to remember this.

After a great deal of thought and discussion with the gelding’s owners Ann and Alan Potts, connections decided to shelve the idea of competing at three-miles and drop back to the minimum trip, a ploy that worked perfectly when the son of Pistolet Bleu put up a great performance in comprehensively outpointing the opposition to win the Grade 1 Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown in December by eight-lengths form the up-and-coming Kauto Stone.

The winner of 13 of his 28 career starts is reportedly in good shape at home with his training scheduled being specifically geared to arriving at Cheltenham in March in tip-top condition to give his very best in the defence of his title. Bookmakers rate his old rival Big Zeb the main danger at 4/1, Finian’s Rainbow can be backed at 6/1, and they go 12/ 1 bar three.