Sue Montgomery's Day Two Verdict: Walsh leaves his champion to mind fences
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Your support makes all the difference.In the Champion Chase there is little room for error and even less time for a rider to organise his mount on the approach to a fence. "If you start doing that you'll land five lengths adrift of where you were," said Ruby Walsh, partner of today's hot favourite Master Minded (3.20), "so you have to leave it to the horse."
Walsh is now happy to do so. Master Minded, who is going for the second Champion Chase hat-trick after Badsworth Boy's in the 1980s, should prevail from Kalahari King.
In the Grade One three-miler, a tough race where experience and grit count as much as brilliance, the Irish runner Weapon's Amnesty (2.40) can follow up last year's hurdles win here.
It is seven years since the winner of the bumper was trained on these shores and on St Patrick's Day Drumbaloo (5.15) can carry on the sequence, with Quel Esprit (2.05) and Deutschland (4.00) also likely for the raiders.
The juvenile handicap should go to Notus De La Tour (4.40), who looked impressive when winning on his British debut at Plumpton, and in the opening amateurs' marathon Fabalu (1.30) is preferred to Pettifour.
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