Master Minded makes the grade in Victor Chandler Chase

Master Minded

It may have lacked the swaggering style of some of his other six Grade One victories but Master Minded found the substance when he needed it most.

The form book and the official handicapper said that Master Minded had between 15 and 29lbs in hand over his eight rivals in the Victor Chandler Chase at Ascot. In the final 50 yards he had a length advantage that was diminishing with every stride as Somersby closed, but it had looked so different three-quarters of a mile earlier.

I’m So Lucky, Somersby and Mad Max set the tempo but Master Minded, with Tony McCoy in the saddle, seemed to take the race by the scruff of the neck when he jumped to the front at the sixth-last fence. That was the point from where Master Minded might start putting daylight between himself and the opposition, as he did when winning the Tingle Creek Chase at Cheltenham by eight lengths last month.

But the ground at Ascot was testing enough and Master Minded could not break free of Somersby off the home turn although as McCoy looked over his shoulder there was a sense that the champion jockey was happy with what he saw. However, Hadden Frost had not given the cause up as lost and Somersby responded for him and, as Master Minded lumbered somewhat over the second-last, he began to lose a little momentum.

Two lengths became one-and-a-half lengths on the run to the final fence and, despite putting in a good jump at the last, Master Minded was there to be shot at on the run-in. Frost was loading the bullets on Somersby and they cut down the leader’s margin to just a short-head before the winning post intervened, with 20 lengths back to Mad Max. It was hardly a vintage performance by the winner, by now under a hallmark McCoy drive, but Master Minded was not found wanting when it came down to a slugging match.

McCoy blamed himself for going on too soon and Paul Nicholls, after a week when the form of his stable had been called into question, reckoned that it would be different Master Minded who will line up for the sportingbet.com Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham in March. Either way anyone looking to beat Master Minded now knows that he can battle with the best of them.

“He did well to win because they went a real good gallop early on,” McCoy said. “He got down into Swinley Bottom and they slowed up, and he came back on the bridle and I let him run. I shouldn’t have, I should have sat against him, because the ground is testing enough. I should have let him fill up more [before kicking on]. But he’s a class act.

“He probably got a little bit tired on the ground, and might have idled a little bit,” McCoy said, adding of Master Minded’s jumping “he got from A to B, which is good enough for me.”

The win was good enough for Nicholls, who admitted that not all of his recent runners have been finding as much as he would hope for at the end of their races. “I was just half pulling my hair out – thinking that some of them are running really well but not quite finishing. That gets into your head a bit but AP just said ‘I gave him a bad ride’ – his words, not mine – but they finished well ahead of the rest.

“We’re probably not in the best form we’ve ever been in and, come the spring, it’ll be totally different. They can’t always run up to their very best every time – we’ve seen that last week [with Kauto Star in the King George VI Chase] – so we’ve got to get him right back to his very best.”

Henrietta Knight knows a thing or hundred about iconic chasers, after winning three Cheltenham Gold Cups with Best Mate, and was pleased with the performance of Somersby, who has the choice of either the Champion or Ryanair Chases at the Festival. “We’d done a lot of work on his jumping this week and I was really pleased with him.”

“He’s not the easiest horse to jump, because he lands with his head in the air, but he was really fluent today. He won’t run again before Cheltenham,” she said, hinting that a rematch with Master Minded was a distinct possibility.

If Master Minded brings the style to the field, Somersby will surely add some substance.

Paul Wheeler

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