Ratings Update: Two cool for school

If novice hurdlers are cast as students learning their job in that first winter over jumps, then the latest weekend would suggest that their course has a pretty loose syllabus. The two big performances over the weekend were both by novice hurdlers who each look bound for a Festival Grade 1, though the directions they’ve come from could hardly be more different.

In Britain it was the bumper-crafted Tea For Two who made the biggest splash, one big enough to blow 12 useful handicappers out of the water in the Lanzarote Hurdle. He won by 16 lengths and it was even easier and more impressive than that sounds. He had the race won from four out and finished full of running, where so many others who’d raced prominently capitulated.

For his destructive performance Tea For Two has earned a rating of 150p, putting him joint-third among Timeform’s top novice hurdlers of the season. Connections are forgiven for not having a clear Festival target for him at this stage, given his rapid emergence and a performance so stunning they surely couldn’t have anticipated it. As far as this column is concerned, even in spite of the uncertainty a price of 25/1 for the Baring Bingham- the natural choice- is tempting based on Tea For Two’s achievements.

Counter to the hastily-instated Tea For Two (unquoted before Saturday), Douvan was in the Supreme Novices’ betting before he’d even run for Willie Mullins. His route will be most familiar to the modern National Hunt follower and even more striking to fans of Vautour. On arriving from France last year Vautour’s mock exams went maiden-Moscow Flyer-Deloitte before he took the Supreme and Douvan, this year's most-touted foreign-exchange student in the Mullins yard, has taken the same first two legs with ease.

To win an up-to-scratch Grade 2 on the bridle is a mark of a top prospect and that surely holds for Douvan. He’s now rated 155P, strictly behind L’Ami Serge (157p) but seemingly having shown even less of his hand.

With that said, we'd auggest that putting Douvan at half the price of L’Ami Serge would be overstating things. At this stage the Supreme looks set to provide one of the best Anglo-Irish clashes of the spring. Douvan has yet to be confirmed for that race, though even-money about him going there, via the Deloitte, would be generous.

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With the rest of the Kempton card telling us little (Balder Succes stayed two and a half miles, rather than improved for it right away, and stays on 162), the rest of the newsworthy British racing came from Warwick, where the Classic Chase was the feature.

The Classic Chase looks set to prove strong form, and was a great advert for the flawed heroes of long-distance steeplechasing. Winner Hawkes Point (140) and third-placed Shotgun Paddy (151) are the sort of horses to whom some will add unwritten symbols after their rating- a ‘§’ in the winner’s case, an ‘x’ for Shotgun Paddy. It’s as likely as not that one or both will end up formally attached to those symbols, but for now they will probably remain interesting in similar races. Hawkes Point came into the race very well-handicapped and Shotgun Paddy isn’t fully exposed, while the same interest can be afforded to the bang-in-form Theatrical Star (142), who split them on the day.

There were also good novice races over both hurdles and fences at Warwick on Saturday. Three Musketeers (141p) was clearly still green in winning the Leamington Novices’ Hurdle. He’s unlikely to be up to tackling the likes of Dovan and Tea For Two over hurdles this year, but he’ll hold his own should the class of 2015 reunite further down the line.

The Hampton Novices’ Chase isn’t quite so reputable and that showed in the ratings achieved. Sego Success (137+) stayed on strongly to pass Grand Vision (136) late on after the latter had probably gone off just a little too hard. The winner in particular looks another serious contender from the King yard for the National Hunt Chase, which tends to take a bit less winning than the Grade 1 novices at the Festival- low-140s being the average in recent years.

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We round off with a quick return to Ireland and perhaps a balm for all the Cheltenham talk. It’s reported that Mallowney (161), an impressive winner of the Dan Moore Memorial Handicap Chase at Fairyhouse on Sunday, will skip the Festival. That could prove to be a shrewd move, for if he’s able to run to his new figure at Punchestown he may get some joy. The five-year average for the winner’s performance in the Champion Chase there is 162, compared with 171 (168 if you discount Sprinter Sacre) for the Queen Mother held the previous month.