Maestro Conti
I’m going to do my best and keep this piece relatively short. Saturday’s card at Cheltenham had a very strange feeling around it and for various reasons each of the Cheltenham “Trials” races had reasons to doubt the form. The incident with Sir Gino changed the entire mood on the card. I have followed that horse since his debut at Auteuil and all I can say is that I am keeping everything crossed that he makes a full recovery. The International Hurdle became an impossible race to assess from that point and I’m not sure I could really add anything significant to my notes about The New Lion as a result. Instead, I thought the more interesting horse to focus on was Maestro Conti, who won the Triumph Hurdle trial earlier on the card for Dan and Harry Skelton. He took his record to 3 wins from 3 starts with this first success in Graded company and on the back of this effort, he is now as short as 9/1 for the Triumph Hurdle in March, but is that fair? I must admit to having my doubts as to whether Maestro Conti would go left-handed. He won on debut at Moulins in September for Noel George and Amanda Zetterholm and was successful at Kempton over Christmas on his first start in the UK. They are both flat right-handed tracks and on both occasions, he leaned to his right towards the centre of the course in the home straight. It was a small note of caution and it could be that the open nature of those courses led to him moving towards the space. He didn’t entirely dispel those doubts on Saturday. Although he jumped straight for most of the contest, Harry Skelton brought him across to the stands rail when they came down the hill and that left him with no option but to run alongside. That was definitely the right place to be on Saturday and he readily went through the gap on the inside of One Horse Town, but the leaders in the Triumph Hurdle do tend to head towards the rail and he is far from certain to get the same stretch of ground in March. I need to add a note to say that there is no strong evidence to suggest that he would struggle if he didn’t have the rail to keep him straight, but it is a small note of caution. One Horse Town was given a very enterprising ride by Paul O’Brien and perhaps went for home too soon when he quickened to record 12.83s for the 14th furlong. He tired in the closing stages and the 16.13s that he ran for the final furlong ranked only 5th of the 9 runners, as did his run-out speed of 26.22 mph. That needs to be taken into account when watching the replay of the closing stages as Maestro Conti comes through with a winning run.
The sectional time comparisons give a decent guide as to his speed. I have asked our team to put together some time comparisons between Maestro Conti and the winners of the longer distance races later on the card. All 3 races were below the TPD Expected time for “Soft” ground at Cheltenham, but given the quality of the races that’s not entirely surprising. However, although the Juveniles had a lower finishing speed, at the point that Maestro Conti was coming with his winning run, I think it’s important to note that he was slower than both Kripticjim and in particular Ma Shantou. The latter is a serious contender for the Stayers’ Hurdle who has been on an almost continuous upward curve in the last 12 months, but even allowing for the fact that Maestro Conti was carrying a lb more, I’d still expect him to find more speed in the latter stages than the winner of the Cleeve Hurdle. His top speed figure of 36.65 mph was slightly quicker than both Ma Shantou (36.07 mph) and Kripticjim (35.99 mph), but they both produced faster late speed figures than the 30.19 mph that he clocked when the race began in earnest. It’s another minor point and I don’t want to be overly harsh on a horse who has won all 3 starts to date, but the Triumph Hurdle is going to require him to find more speed unless the ground is especially testing in March. When he won on good ground at Kempton in December, his top speed figure of 34.30 mph ranked 8th of the 9 runners.
I like Maestro Conti. He is a half-brother to Live Conti who should be on your radar for the County Hurdle after an eye-catching run at Windsor earlier this month. The Skelton’s took their time with him last season, so the fact that they are pressing on with Maestro Conti would suggest that they think he is slightly further forwards than his older sibling at the same stage. In a year or two, I think it is highly likely that we will be discussing Maestro Conti as one of the most promising Novice Chasers in the UK, but for the Triumph Hurdle I think there are one or two reasons to exercise some caution because of the speed data we have from his 2 runs for the Skelton’s so far. The Triumph hurdle can turn into a stamina test and it is often won by a horse that needs to go up in trip in time and in the right circumstances he could be a contender. However, at this stage I would argue that both Proactif and in particular Narciso Has have shown more speed in their respective runs. He has achieved the most of those Juveniles based in the UK and getting the better of One Horse Town and Minella Yoga on Saturday means that he beat the right horses from a form perspective. However, there are just enough doubts raised by the data to keep me from considering him to be capable of beating the Irish at this stage.