Sixteen runners for the VP * only three from abroad 2008-10-03

Fatal Mac is a 9-y-o trained in Italy by top trainer over fences, Paolo Favero. He has won 12 of his 35 races over fences, mostly in cross-country races at Merano. This year, on September 26th he easily won the Pr. Delle Nazioni-Mem. Marco Rocca, a race in which Czech-trained Black Diamond fell. Before that, he finished 3rd to Black Diamond in the Premio Associazione Arma Di Cavalleria at Merano at the end of August, and on August 10th he narrowly beat Black Diamond in the Premio Raffaele Ammirato. The form against the promising Black Diamond is only moderately impressive, and the Pardubice course will be unfamiliar to Fatal Mac. He is not entirely without a chance, and a good performance by this Italian visitor would be warmly welcomed.

Nadover is a 7-y-o gelding, trained in the UK by Charlie Mann. He has won 4 of his 18 races, all in England and Wales. Last time out, on April 5th, he finished a fairly remote 7th to Comply or Die in the Aintree Grand National. His other three runs in 2008 were nothing special, but he won at Chepstow on December 27th, 2007. Charlie Mann rode and trained the last foreign-trained winner of the VP, It*s a Snip, in 1995, and Nadover will have been expertly prepared for VP 2008. This seems to be the best of the foreign challengers, and has a very good chance of winning the race.

Ivoire de Beaulieu is a 12-y-o gelding, trained in the UK by Ferdy Murphy. He has won 2 of his 9 races since arriving in the UK from France, both of them in December 2005. He finished 4th in VP 2007 and followed that by finishing a good 4th to Wonderkid in the BGC cross-country handicap at Cheltenham in December. He has run in three cross-country races at Punchestown and Cheltenham in 2008, without winning any prize money, and last raced at the end of April. His trainer is a long-term friend of Pardubice steeplechasing, and has surely been preparing the horse carefully for the race. The horse clearly has a reasonable chance of being placed, but he seems to lack finishing speed.