Haiti Couleurs was very disappointing in the Betfair Chase at Haydock and there’s no getting away from that, but his performance in Saturday’s Welsh Grand National means that we can firmly put that down to a disliking for the track and nothing more. This was a dominant display from Rebecca Curtis’ stable star, who controlled large parts of the contest with a solid jumping display that got better as the race wore on. An average speed loss of 10.8% over his fences ranked him 7th of the 10 runners to complete the course, but crucially he lost just 8.4% of his speed over his obstacles in the closing stages, the best jumping fluency figure in the field at that stage. All of this came despite being awkward at the 3rd last and as they approached the 2nd last, it did appear that O’Connell was coming with a winning challenge after being ridden more patiently by Danny McMenamin. O’Connell had won the London national at Sandown earlier in the month and arrived in Wales in the best form of his life. He was faster than Haiti Couleurs in the 3 penultimate furlongs in the straight, but Sean Bowen was really only teasing his rival.

If we examine the sectional times for the final mile, the only point in the race that Haiti Couleurs ran the fastest individual split is in the final furlong when he clocked 15.09s. However, in each of the final 8 furlong splits he ranked in the top 5 and despite the fact that O’Connell was 1.54s quicker than the winner over furlongs 28 and 29, Sean Bowen was simply allowing his mount time to gather his strength for one final effort after the last. The undulations in the Chepstow straight can make it hard to assess the stride data as horses can be continually adjusting their feet to meet the dips, but I think it is significant that Haiti Couleurs was the only horse in the field that was able to increase both his average stride frequency and his average stride length figure when heading into the final furlong. In part that will be because most of the runners were allowed to come home in their own time once their chance was gone, but a race best run-out speed of 30.06 mph (next best Deafening Silence 29.30 mph) would suggest that the winner was the only horse with anything significant left to offer. He has already won a National Hunt Chase and an Irish Grand National, so we didn’t learn anything about his stamina that we didn’t already know, but to run a winning time of 7:52.29 in a Welsh National, whilst carrying 11-13 is a performance that needs to be recognised. There are inevitable comparisons being made between Haiti Couleurs and Native River. The latter won this race before going on to win a Gold Cup. For what it’s worth, he ran a similar time of 7:52.70 in this race, though Native River ran on ground described as Soft. The ground was far from soft on Saturday. The times run in the earlier races were much more akin to good ground when compared to the TPD expected time figures. Haiti Couleurs’ time was over 19s faster than the TPD expected time for this race on ground described as Good (21s faster if it had been Good to Soft). That’s an important factor to take into account as a bare look at the time might lead to the conclusion that this was a better performance than it was. A top speed figure of 35.05 mph was slower than the 2 horses that chased him home and it ranked him 9th of the 10 to complete. That’s another point that needs to be taken into account. It takes more than just pure stamina to win a Grade 1 Chase over 3 miles.

I don’t want to detract anything significant from this performance. This was magnificent and whilst the handicapper will have his own opinion in the days ahead, this has got to be considered to be a 160+ performance. If that’s the case, then Haiti Couleurs needs to be considered to be a Gold Cup contender. The performances of the Jukebox Man and Affordable Fury to win their respective Grade 1 races over the Christmas period are probably not more than 5 or 6 lbs higher than this and if anything, Haiti Couleurs does appear to be still improving. The galloping nature of the track at Cheltenham clearly suits and whilst he does need to prove himself in Grade 1 company, it’s not impossible to think that he could be competitive in the showpiece race in March. If nothing else, we know he will have the stamina for it and in the right conditions, he may be able to battle his way to glory.