Croco A Crazy Price For Case At Cheltenham

The weights were recently released for the handicaps at the Cheltenham festival and my eyes lit up when I saw that Croco Bay had been given a mark of 147 for the Grand Annual, the last race on the Friday. This 9yo son of Croco Rouge was a brilliant 3rd in this race last year off a mark of 149, 5L behind Next Sensation, and he is 3lb better off with that rival this time around.

Now on the form he has shown on his last couple of runs Croco Bay would not have a hope going into this race. However, he produced a decent effort off 151 on his seasonal reappearance at Kelso (17f good to firm) when he was beaten just over 3L by Simply Ned. He was stepped up to Grade 2 company at Cheltenham on his next run and was beaten out of sight behind Sprinter Sacre, and his last run on desperate ground at Kelso in a class 2 hurdle (18f) was obviously just meant to blow away the cobwebs before his assault on the festival.

The Ben Case yard wouldn't be blessed with a huge amount of horses that are good enough to run in these sort of races, let alone go close in them, and I am firmly of the belief that Croco Bay's whole season has been geared towards having another crack at this race. Now he is admittedly still 10lb above his last winning mark, but the manner of that win was mightily impressive (hacked up by 19L) and he showed last season that he is capable of making an impact off his current mark. How he is more than treble the price of Next Sensation is beyond me, and at his current odds of 33/1 he is definitely worth a few quid each way.

STEVOS' SELECTION-GRAND ANNUAL CHASE-CROCO BAY E/W 33/1