Recent JLT Handicap Chase trends point to Jonjo O’Neill

Jonjo O’Neill has trained two of the last five winners of the JLT Specialty Handicap Chase and the Gloucestershire-based handler evidently targets the race.

Run over three miles, the contest has had a variety of names over the years but O’Neill’s success has been constant; he won the race with Wichita Lineman in 2009 and Alfie Sherrin in 2012.

Weight issues

Those two horses both carried less than 11 stone, which is a feature of 13 of the last 14 winners.

Over the last 30 years there has not been one winner rated over 150, and the very best horses in the handicap don’t tend to win this race.

Golden Chieftain (rated 132) won last-year’s renewal and was a comfortable winner, however it is the fourth horse home, Tullamore Dew, who is part of an interesting statistic.

Nick Gifford’s charge was the first 11-year-old (or older) to be placed in the race since Flyer’s Nap won the race in 1997, although there have been four 10-year-old winners in that period.

Back-to-back travails

Should Golden Chieftain return to defend his crown, he will be attempting to be the first horse since Scot Lane (1982/83) to win back-to-back renewals of the race; no horse has ever regained the race’s crown.

Whilst older horses have struggled, the most successful age group have been eight-year-olds who have won six of the last 13 renewals.

Jubilant jockeys

Punters who like to follow a jockey should concentrate on Robert Thornton.

The Englishman, who is also known as ‘Choc’, has ridden two winners for his boss Alan King as well as one for Francois Doumen.

However the trainer to avoid is Paul Nicholls.

The Ditcheat handler has often questioned the handicapping of horses at the more high-profile yards, and his record in this race would appear to add some substance to his argument; he has never saddled the winner.