Of the four Championship races at the Cheltenham Festival, before what is now the World Hurdle started having three-time winners, arguably the race most associated with horses successful in it more than once was the two-mile steeplechasing championship, the Queen Mother Champion Chase. Dual winners that I've looked up in the list at the back of Chasers & Hurdlers 1991/92 include Fortria, Drinny's Double, Royal Relief, Skymas, Hilly Way, Pearlyman and Barnbrook Again; and, of course, Badsworth Boy sticks out as a three-time winner.

The most recent runnings have gone against that trend. The last dual-winner, Master Minded, did his best performance of last season in the 2m4f Melling Chase at Aintree after looking outpaced in the Queen Mother, already beaten when blundering at the last at Cheltenham. Before the race most probably thought that it had Big Zeb's name on it, as the 2010 renewal had done, but Sizing Europe, who flopped badly in the 2008 Champion Hurdle, followed up his Festival victory in the 2010 Arkle to take the honours.

Sizing Europe doesn't always find at the business end of his races, but neither does Big Zeb, and the better ground than Sizing Europe had often been running on earlier in the season - notably when he was third, seven lengths behind Big Zeb (himself half a length behind Golden Silver) in the Tied Cottage Chase at Punchestown in January on a soft surface - was a great help. However the Irish-trained pair are vulnerable to improvers in 2011/12 - but with Master Minded apparently heading for the King George VI Chase in the new season, will there be any?

The ante-post markets generally suggest that Finian's Rainbow is going to be the strongest challenger, but he seems vulnerable at the end himself if you consider his Arkle performance. Allowed to roll in front, with a view to improving his jumping, at least that objective was achieved but he only had the one pace when Captain Chris swept by. Finian's Rainbow will start 2011/12 with a record over fences of four wins from five starts and will probably win his share of trials on the way to Cheltenham - you probably wouldn't look elsewhere if he turned up in the Game Spirit Chase, for example.

I see Captain Chris as one for races over 2m4f and upwards. In the Arkle he wasn't travelling as well as Finian's Rainbow from a long way out, and won it through stamina, overcoming his trait of jumping to the right. Because of that tendency it was a good call to miss Aintree with him and he took the Grade 1 2m novice chase at Punchestown, but even round the right-handed track he still showed a right-hand bias at the fences, brushing the inside wing twice and, again, not going as well as his main challenger come the closing stages, Realt Dubh - Ireland's best 2m novice chaser last season - travelling the better approaching two out but Philip Hobbs's gelding staying on the stronger. The King George VI Chase was nominated as Captain Chris's target in the first half of the season.

One who's always looked a two-miler through and through to me is Ghizao, who beat Captain Chris twice in the first half of the 2010/11 season, once when winning a Grade 2 novice chase on soft at Cheltenham's Open meeting and again in thick Newbury fog just after Christmas. In the Arkle and Maghull Novice Chases the ground was good - drier than ideal for this one - and he could only manage a poor fifth at Cheltenham but did surprisingly better at Aintree, where he would have gone close to beating Finian's Rainbow but for mistakes at the last two fences. His attitude under pressure is better than it was in his novice hurdling days, and I would be pretty sweet on Ghizao's chances if it came up soft or heavy for the 2012 Queen Mother. At around 20/1 during the Summer, that's good value if you can trust the weather to do its bit.

Similar comments apply to Scilly Isles winner Medermit, who started favourite in the Arkle after beating Captain Chris at Sandown. Over hurdles he had a crack at the 2010 Champion, and would have been a credible each-way bet at his starting price that time of 11/1 had the going been soft or heavy. His lack of size didn't stop him making up into one of last season's leading novice chasers and, when conditions allowed, he was bordering on top class over hurdles.

However, the next one I'm going to bring into the mix might be more surprising to some. Step forward Captain Chris's stablemate Wishfull Thinking, who in a stellar first season over fences - entirely over trips around 2m4f - won four out of seven, including two Grade 2s - primarily the Manifesto at Aintree, in which he beat Medermit - and two handicaps. The 2m5f novices' handicap at Punchestown, in which he had 16 rivals, was his best performance - he made all from the third and beat Blazing Tempo by just over four lengths; the runner-up boosted that in no uncertain terms when he took no less a race than the Galway Plate the day before I wrote this. Off an official Irish Turf Club mark of 159 there, Wishfull Thinking is now 162 with me, giving him less than ten lengths to find to get competitive in a Grade 1.

I do have a reservation about Wishfull Thinking as a 2m4f to 3m chaser. His free-going style has left him vulnerable to a staying-on one at the end of his races - notably when second to Noble Prince in the first running of the new Jewson Novices' Chase at the Cheltenham Festival. Which has led me to think that, like One Man, this fellow would be better off in the Queen Mother next March. It took the grey's connections three seasons to work out that he was a two-miler all along, but maybe it won't take so long for Hobbs and owner Diana Whateley to make a similar judgement. The 25/1 ante-post offer about Wishfull Thinking will tempt a few.

With the Master Minded years of two-mile chasing apparently over, the 2012 Queen Mother Champion Chase could be the most competitive renewal for some years.

Return to the Jumps Scene index

---