Broadway Boy And Victtorino Head The Betting As Sixteen Confirmed For Coral Gold Cup

It was a memorable weekend for trainer Venetia Williams with Royal Pagaille recording back-to-back victories in the Grade 1 Betfair Chase. The inform trainer holds one entry in this Saturday’s Coral Gold Cup in Victtorino. The dual Grade 3 winner over 3m is current 6-1 joint favourite with sponsors Coral having been a 16-1 chance last week. Victtorino would be making his seasonal reappearance having not been seen since pulling up in the Ultima at this year’s Cheltenham Festival.

Victtorino holds joint favouritism with the Twiston-Davies trained Broadway Boy. A Grade 3 winner over 3m2f at Cheltenham last season, Broadway Boy finished third behind Senior Chief at The Showcase Meeting on his first run of the season. Trained by Henry De Bromhead, Senior Chief remains one of three potential Irish raiders alongside Grandero Bello (E & P. Harty) and Horantzay d’Airy (W.Mullins) and a sole French representative in General En Chef (N. George & A. Zetterholm).

Lambourn based trainer Jamie Snowden won the contest last year with The GD Partnership owned Datsalrightgino. The same trainer and owner combination seek back-to-back victories with Grade 2 winner, Colonel Harry, a current 13-2 chance with sponsors Coral. Having made a promising seasonal reappearance when finishing second over 2m4f in the Colin Parker Listed race at Carlisle, Colonel Harry will be stepping up in trip for the first time.

Having trained the winner of the race on three previous occasions, Paul Nicholls has one representative in Saturday’s renewal with the Mr Michael Geoghegan owned Kandoo Kid. A winner at the Coral Gold Cup meeting last year, it will be a first run back following a third placed finish in the Topham Chase for Kandoo Kid who is a current 7-1 chance with Coral.

Dan Skelton, the winning trainer of the race with Le Milos in 2022, could be dually represented by Midnight River and Galia des Liteaux. Midnight River, a faller in the race last year when prominent, was third on seasonal debut. The nine-year-old is due to carry 11st 9, behind 12st top weight Nassalam (G & J. Moore) and the veteran Sam Brown (A. Honeyball), due to carry 11st12.

Coral’s David Stevens commented: “There are 16 runners left in contention for this year’s wide open-looking Coral Gold Cup, and any of the first six or seven in the betting could yet start favourite on Saturday.”

“At this stage however, our market is headed jointly by last month’s Cheltenham third, Broadway Boy, and Victtorino for the in-form Venetia Williams, who has been the biggest market mover for the race, having been a 16-1 chance last week,” added Stevens.