Racing: Knight has Foly Pleasant on course to show prowess

Pull on the deerstalker, polish the magnifying glass and get ready to sprinkle the fingerprint dust, for today allows the last opportunity to garner Festival clues at the home of National Hunt racing's championships.

Cheltenham's final card before what will be, for two years at least, just the three big days of the spring, is highlighted by the Pillar Property Chase, a contest which has generated the Gold Cup winner in three of its last seven runnings. There are just six participants here, but heaps of intrigue. Each runner deserves a mention.

Bacchanal wears blinkers for the first time as connections try to determine whether the Blue Riband or the Stayers' Hurdle is to be his Festival objective. The nine-year-old must also prove he has recovered from a brutal King George.

Behrajan won at Ascot last month, but that was made easier by the surrender of Truckers Tavern at the first. Not all of these will be waving the white flags today.

Valley Henry's odds have been descending for the Gold Cup, but now he has to leave childish things behind if he is to make an impact at senior level.

Cyfor Malta likes this venue and had a tough task at the weights in the Tripleprint Gold Cup. Fourth was not as bad as it seemed and he can improve on that.

Gingembre is now likely to be awarded the Hennessy Gold Cup as Be My Royal, who was first that November day, should lose the race after testing positive for a prohibited substance which emanated from contaminated feed. If Gingembre had been the official winner he would have an extra 6lb to carry here. On the debit side, Gingembre, recently supported for the Gold Cup, is recovering from a setback. "He's very well, but we'd have liked the race to come 10 days later," Lavinia Taylor, his owner and trainer, said yesterday. "He had muck in his lungs at Christmas and it's been a rush to get him right. We were keen to give him a run at Cheltenham, but he'll be fitter in March."

The one to be on from what will be a dirty half dozen at the end of play is Foly Pleasant (next best 2.35), another who is proven in this arena if not at this trip. However, Henrietta Knight's chaser was not stopping at the end of the Tripleprint Chase here and may deliver proof that a longer trip is now a prerequisite.

The Cleeve Hurdle has provided a subsequent Champion Hurdle winner in the past though that is not likely to be repeated this year. The race nevertheless provides a second intriguing meeting between Eternal Spring and Classified, who participated in a joke race here last month in a contest run at Tussaud's pace. Granted a faster contest (and it cannot possibly be slower), Classified should take advantage from the revision in weights.

The juvenile novices' hurdle will be hugely informative as it brings together Saintsaire and Don Fernando, first and second favourites in Triumph Hurdle betting. Martin Pipe thinks Don Fernando (3.45) has the credentials of his previous Triumph winners, Baron Blakeney and Kissair. That is good enough.

The Ladbroke Trophy Chase can be the preserve of POLIANTAS (nap 3.10), who was eased down considerably behind Edredon Bleu at Wincanton last Saturday, which means his humiliation was not as it seems in the form book. He made a race of it for a long way and the sympathy with which he was treated after the winner bolted is evinced in his appearance here.

In Doncaster's Great Yorkshire Chase Bold Investor (2.15), who was third in Kempton's Feltham Novices' Chase to Jair Du Cochet and Le Sauvignon, has a fine chance. In form terms that is top bombing.

At Leopardstown tomorrow, Limestone Lad attempts to add to his 35 career wins in the AIG Europe Champion Hurdle. The Supreme Novices' Hurdle winner Like-A-Butterfly will be making her seasonal return in the race, but Willie Mullins's Festival hope Davenport Milenium (2.40) can regain the winning thread.