Road to Cheltenham: It’s too early to write off this 40/1 Ryanair Chase contender

It’s never too early to start thinking about the Cheltenham Festival and our Road to Cheltenham series kicked off last week with a 16/1 Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase selection. We change our focus to the Ryanair Chase this time around and Liam Bramall has picked out a 40/1 shot. The horse in question has prematurely written off and may not be this price after his next run. Check out our free tips page for daily content across British and Irish racing.

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Ryanair Chase

Ginny’s Destiny hails from the Paul Nicholls yard and whilst Festival winners have been hard to come by for him, he did win two Grade 1 novice races back in 2023. This horse was one of his better performers at last season’s Festival and he took the step up to Grade 1 level in his stride to finish second to Grey Dawning in the Turners Novices’ Chase.

Hugely progressive before that, he completed a hat-trick of novice chase wins here at Cheltenham. Two of those came on the New course and he was far too good for them when winning off a mark of 147 on Trials Day. Runner-up again at Aintree, he had Grey Dawning behind him that day.

Nicholls has suggested he would like to step this horse up in trip and whilst three miles would be fine, the Gold Cup trip might be a bit too far. Connections won’t want this course specialist to miss Cheltenham and the Ryanair looks like the logical option with that in mind.

There’s been a bit of an overreaction with regards to his performance in the Paddy Power Gold Cup last time out. He was going well enough and clearly just emptied out, so he’s entitled to improve for the run when we next see him. The December Gold Cup might be an option and he should prove hard to beat if lining up there.

Ginny’s Destiny @ 40/1 (Paddy Power) Ryanair Chase

Previous selections

Better Days Ahead @ 16/1 (Paddy Power) Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase

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