Racing: Azertyuiop the right type for high-class chase

A soon as the National Hunt season starts all roads lead to the Cheltenham Festival, but tomorrow, at the foot of Cleeve Hill, some of the nation's most promising novice chasers hit the superhighway.

There is no more evocative name in the sport than Arkle and no more significant place to begin the quest for the race named in his honour than at Cheltenham in tomorrow's Independent Newspaper Novices' Chase. The journey over two miles of the Old course will be the essential foundation for those seeking to return for the Irish Independent Arkle Trophy on the first day of the Festival next March.

"It's a top-class steeplechase in its own right," Martin Pipe, the champion trainer says, "and a good start for a novice at the right time of the season." Pipe, who won the race 12 months ago with Seebald, is represented this year by Golden Alpha, now a novice chaser and a horse who first made his mark at Prestbury Park by finishing second to Monsignor in the 1999 Festival Bumper. Like Seebald, he has rattled up a succession of early-season wins, some of them accomplished more easily than the rigorous training sessions at Pond House.

"We've introduced him nice and quietly and he's had plenty of experience," Pipe says. "This is going to be his big test."

The one to beat, however, is AZERTYUIOP (nap 2.15), who is trained by Pipe's great West Country rival, Paul Nicholls. He won easily on his reappearance at Market Rasen after the departure of his main rival, Fait Le Jojo, who is trained by a third member of the Somerset mafia, Philip Hobbs.

"Azertyuiop is the best horse I've had to go novice chasing since Flagship Uberalles," says Nicholls, another to acknowledge the influence of tomorrow's race. "This has been my horse's target since he came in. If you've got a horse that you hope is good enough to run in the Arkle then this is the ideal look at Cheltenham before you go there for the Festival."

It has proved to be a rewarding reconnaissance mission in the past. Best Mate, the best jumping horse on the planet, was the first winner of the race under the Independent banner two years ago and a further success at Sandown made him a hot favourite for the Arkle.

That, though, was the season of foot-and-mouth and neither Best Mate nor any other horse competed at Cheltenham. The next time that Henrietta Knight's chaser visited jumping's heartland was last March for victory in the Gold Cup itself.

Best Mate's Independent victory was not without its drama. The great horse, in Jim Lewis's Aston Villa colours, looked to be struggling when he abused the fourth-last obstacle and was then locked in thrilling combat with Dusk Duel when Nicky Henderson's runner slipped on landing two out.

There was a hauntingly familiar finish to the race a year ago for Henderson when his Fondmort, going like a winner, blundered away his chance, also at the second last. That allowed a fifth consecutive success for a horse with another football connection, Seebald, the property of the Macca & Growler partnership, aka Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler.