God’s Own looks heavenly in Tingle Creek Chase

With star two-milers Sprinter Sacre and Sire De Grugy both on the sidelines today’s Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown is a wide-open affair, and the progressive God’s Own is fancied to get the better of old rival Balder Succes to land the 2m feature contest (3.00).
The pair have met three-times, with Balder coming out on top by 1 1/4 lengths on the first occasion in the Grade 2 Pendil Novices’ chase at Kempton.

However, God’s Own got his revenge next time up when winning the Grade 1 Ryanair Novices’ Chase at the Punchestown Festival, in which Balder Succes finished 3/4 of a length behind in third, and also beat the Alan King trained gelding when they clashed on seasonal reappearance in the Haldon Gold Cup at Exeter.

The Tom George trained grey made a mistake four from home in the latter, but quickly recovered and stayed on strongly to score going away by five lengths from Balder.

Although the runner-up is now 7lb better off at the weights, God’s Own won with plenty of authority and looks the type who has plenty more to offer.

The six-year-old is on a serious upward curve, has run all his best races on right handed tracks, and with the stable in terrific form and Paddy Brennan in the is taken to come out on top again and complete the hat-trick.

In Sprinter Sacre’s absence, Lambourn trainer Nicky Henderson relies on Oscar Whisky who ran a very solid race to finish fourth in the Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham last month under a welter burden of 11st 12lb.

The nine-year-old is entitled to come on significantly for the outing, and given that he is 2-2 over course and distance commands the utmost respect.

Trainer Paul Nicholls has a good record in the race and is represented by Dodging Bullets and Hinterland.
The Ditcheat handler has won the contest with the likes of Kauto Star, Master Minded and Twist Magic, and Dodging Bullets looks the pick of his pair based on jockey bookings.

The six-year-old had some top class form to his name last season when winning three times, and ran well at Cheltenham last month on his first start for 227 days when a two length third to Uxizandre.

That was a decent effort, but Dodging Bullets is not well-treated by the conditions of this contest and will need to raise his game to another level to land the spoils.